Follow Sean Inman to the best in craft beer
These are the beers that I wish I could taste for the first time.
To start, anybody that puts the word surreptitious on a beer label gets a kudo. After that, I am on the fence. How will the hops vs. Jack battle end? Or will they work together? At that ABV, I have a feeling it might be more barrel than hop from noted hop heads Knee Deep.
You really can’t go wrong with Saison Dupont. The traditional saison is a hallmark of the style, their holiday beer is a perfect present for the beer fan and for five years they have been into Dry Hopping. Each year this special offering, brewed in limited quantity, is hopped with a different and usually under the radar hop. This year the hop “Minstrel” from England was the choice. Minstrel is an aroma hop with herbal, orange, spice and berry aromas.
Pick one or two up.
Beer Camp Across America, the wide-ranging collaboration series from Sierra Nevada will return in 2016 with a jaw-dropping “30 (!) collaboration partners for a new mixed 12-pack…”
Then in the summer of 2016 those beers and more will be sent on a 6 city tour of beer festivals.
What is most exciting is that both Beachwood Brewing and Smog City are on the initial list (see below). Maybe they will both end up in the final 12-pack!
If you are going to celebrate 20 years of brewing, you might as well go for a 20% ABV beer because at age 30 trying to hit 30% ABV is much, much more difficult. So enter Higher Math from Dogfish Head which is coming to market in October.
It is a golden ale that is then fermented with both cherries and cocoa nibs. Probably not in large amounts so look to your favorite beer bar and see if they will have a special party to celebrate what may be rare kegs.
First off the line was New Belgium and their Hop Tart now Almanac is debuting a new single hop sour series with the super popular Citra Hop.
They urge you to “look beyond the IBUs” and see how the citrusy hop with lemon and grapefruit notes plays with the “tart, earthy sour blonde ale, creating a beer that both contradicts and compliments itself.”
Yup, this IPA has 77 different hop varieties! Enough to scare off Brynner, McQueen, Bronson and Coburn. The hops are “sourced from seven different countries, ranging from a few ounces of New Zealand’s Wai-iti hop to pounds of classic American varieties like Citra.”
Here are some other interesting factoids from LoneRider Brewing who created this brew:
• Hop additions went to the extreme. Six additions took place during a 77 minute boil, then seven days of dry hopping with different varieties, followed by 14 more varieties for an additional seven days.
• It clocks in at 7.7 percent ABV and 77 IBUs.
• To source all the hops, they used eight different hop suppliers, from online retailers spread across the country to local options in Durham and Raleigh, North Carolina.
• By their count, Lonerider staff could find 84 different varieties, but chose 77 to play off their theme and the famous Western movie, Magnificent 7.
• Lemon Drop, Huell Melon, Mosaic, Saphir, Nelson Sauvin and more started rolling in. Using alpha acid content and flavor descriptions of each hop.
• Brewers worked to create a recipe to match up qualities as best they could for hop additions at 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 and 77 minutes during the beer’s boiling process.
I guess it is Gose day. Here is the write-up from Sierra Nevada on their newly bottled, Otra Vez, “a sweet-tangy blend of native-grown prickly pear cactus and grapefruit combined with the zing of a traditional gose for a vicious but delicious twist on the stodgy summer sippers.”
Seems like every brewery needs a Gose and an IPA in their line-up and Modern Times is the latest with their newest special release, Fruitlands, a cherry gose.
Here is their backstory on the beer: “First, we created a traditional gose mash with loads of salt and coriander. Next, we dosed it with 4 different strains of Lactobacillus to create the perfect funky, salty base beer. Finally, once fermentation finished, we added a healthy portion of tart Michigan grown Montmorency cherry juice.”
Now all they have to do is add Cait to the mix! General Mills Inc. the maker of the infamous Wheaties have teamed with Fulton Beer to create the new Minnesota born and bred HefeWheaties.
This wheat beer in the German Hefeweizen style that was based on a homebrew recipe will debut at the end of the month at the Fulton tap room followed by a limited and distinctively orange can distribution. Which will probably be followed by people using the beer in their morning Wheaties and Instagramming it.
Wheaties, AKA “the breakfast of champions,” was created all the way back in 1921 and like “I’m Going to Disneyland” has become a sports success marker.
The hop maestros of Chico are not content to “Harvest” Southern Hemisphere hops, Wild hops and now hops with no name with their Sierra Nevada Newly Developed Hop IPA. And you get the helpful listing of the (4) hops used in what they are also calling a 100-Day IPA.
The flavors that Sierra Nevada extol are quite wide-ranging and frankly, weird: “Complex flavors of cedar, chocolate, coconut, and orange-citrus create an incredibly unique flavor profile perfect for those truly passionate about IPA.”