Follow Sean Inman to the best in craft beer
These are the beers that I wish I could taste for the first time.
Anchor Brewing has unveiled a new line of beers going by the name of the “Zymaster Series,” which will have its coming out party during San Francisco Beer Week.
It will be a modern re-creation of a lager using California malt and cluster hops to match up with what may have been brewed back in the days before even Anchor Brewing started up. To read up on the research that went into creating this new beer check out the Brookston Beer Bulletin HERE.
It seems like peppers are “hot” in the brewing world what with 11-11-11 from Stone and this from New Belgium.
“Cocoa Molé combines chocolate, cinnamon and plentiful ancho, guajillo and chipotle chilies for a sweet and spicy burst of flavor. Brewed with pale, caramel-80, chocolate, dark chocolate malts and a healthy dash of chocolate rye, Cocoa Molé presents midnight dark with a subtle reddish hue, lifting a pillowy, burnished head. It starts on the tongue with a swirl of chocolate malt that dissolves into the warm embers of a peppery heat. Alcohol by volume is nine percent and it will be available on draft and in 22-ounce bombers.”
“Four native sons are hoping that the name recognition generated from the 15-year-old Coen brothers flick will help launch their fledgling brewing company in North Dakota’s largest city. Their first beer is called Wood Chipper, a whimsical reference to the famous prop from the movie.”
I am surprised that that name hadn’t been appropriated earlier. It is perfect for a palate wrecking IPA. And now the Fargo Beer Company is sending it out to North Dakota (which could use more breweries, if for the only reason that I could knock it off my tried a beer from each state list)
We all should be familiar with the brown bottle with a troika of names on it since Stone has gone full tilt with their collaborations.
And now a new one to add to the mantle….TBA. Looks like a brown ale with molasses and brown sugar and they have gone east coast / west coast just like the More Brown than Black by drafting in Bear Republic of California and Fatheads of Pennsylvania Ohio. Review to come later!
I know that I seem to be pushing Sixpoint hard of late, but I really like both their beers and their marketing. And I am not the only one.
It is one of the fastest growing breweries in New York. And they are sending out more and more beers in their modern, yet traditional looking cans. I have been fortunate enough to have had a couple different selections from them and now they are bringing out more like Diesel and Harbinger to put on my wish list. Seeing a saison in a tallboy just brings a smile to my face. It really blurs the boundaries for people who still see cans as just lager receptacles.
One brewery that I haven’t ticked off my “to try” list is Crooked Stave of Fort Collins / Denver. And these two beers sound great.
YELLOW
With Red and Orange released this past fall, it’s time for more beers in the Wild Wild Brett Series from Crooked Stave. Yellow and Green will be making their way across the Colorado front range starting next week. Keeping up with the series, Wild Wild Brett Yellow is a full fledged experiment which took inspiration from the savory sweet culinary traditions of southern India. Yellow has a pronounced tropical fruit base character with a small amount of spice caring forward an aroma that is both subtle and inviting. Yellow was brewed with honey, turmeric, mango and coriander before receiving a very light spicing during months of conditioning in our oak foeder.
GREEN
Wild Wild Brett Green is our nod to absurdly hopped beers… Showcasing the Australian Galaxy hop, WWBG uses 4lbs of hops per barrel with dank, dark berry tropical fruit hop characteristics dominating the flavor and aroma. The Crooked Stave twist.. WWBG was fermented and conditioned in neutral oak which actually made it easier for us to dry hop the beer multiple times over the aging period. The result, an unfiltered “wild ale” with little wild character. The hops are so dominate like in an Imperial IPA that for now it’s hard to get any Brett character. Over time the hops will fade and our house Brett character will rouse the senses.
I have had the pleasure of having a few Yazoo beers from Tennessee and I still keep track of their hop project beers as well. Then I heard about….
It is a smoked sour ale. Sounds very much like something the Bruery would do and it sounds intriguing.
I have seen this new Sierra Nevada beer advertised in all of the beer-y magazines that I subscribe to and I cannot wait to give it a whirl in a pint glass.
Apparently this will replace Glissade which never won me over. It should be in SoCal markets now. Pick it up along with Bigfoot barleywine. If I find one in time, I will attempt to do a video review this month.
There are times when I can’t believe that I have missed a can’t miss beer. It’s a good problem to have though. Add another one to the list of beers that I hope to run across…Deviant Dales, “This beer is intended to be a sensory assault for hop lovers. At 8.0% ABV, four hop additions during the brew process, and a final wallop of excessive Columbus dry-hopping, this beer is meant to say one thing: MORE HOPS! Perfect for these cool winter nights, The Deviant is a returning favorite from the little brewery in Lyons, Colorado that started the Canned Revolution!”
I shall be dutifully checking the Oskar Blues section in my local beer stores.