“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)
Stone cannot stop collaborating
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!
A harbinger
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.
Wild, Wild Brett
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.
Spontaneous Construction
Yazoo Fortuitous
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.
Ruthless Rye
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.
Deviant Dales
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.
A Design Tip o’ the Hat
Cheers to Santa Fe Brewing for this great design.
Clean and simple with an appropriate color choice. It is eye catching because it is not trying to beat you over the head with graphics. Just a simple brand logo and a nice counterpoint with the green color on the font.
Oh and the beer sounds delicious too: “This is the kind of beer that gives the word “stout” a reputation. Extra generous quantities of barley malt, followed by vigorous fermentation leaves this “imperial” heavy weight with 8% alcohol A.B.V. and a body as full as chocolate bread pudding. A complimentary and complex array of bitter notes comes form potent American hops, earthy British hops, black-roasted malts and, of course, coffee. Santa Fe Brewing Company uses only top-quality ingredients like organically grown East Timor coffee beans blended with New Guinea coffee beans, locally roasted by O’hori’s Coffee House. Its heavenly flavor and aroma can’t be beat or imitated.”
You can’t download these beers
From a recent Lost Abbey press release, “Get ready to crank the stereo up to 12. In January 2012, The Lost Abbey will begin a year-long series of special edition beer releases inspired by classic rock anthems invoking Heaven and Hell. Each month the brewery will release one new beer, culminating in December with a complete boxed gift set of all twelve. Each “track” released will be limited to a total of 450 bottles and available exclusively in the brewery’s tasting room.”
Sounds like a great idea. Blast the tune while mashing and hopping. Fits with the sinners and saints thing they have going.
“The Box Set releases are divided into three collections of four titles each:
Re-Masters – Barrel-aged spins of The Lost Abbey mainstays
Re-Mixes – New blends created from The Lost Abbey archives
Fresh Tracks – All new beers brewed specifically for Box Set”
Very High Fidelity but a good way to keep the creative juices flowing.
“Each release will be offered in a 375ml corked, hood-and-wire format and include its own original art. Beers will represent the full gamut of The Lost Abbey’s signature stylings, including fruit and spiced beers, wood-aged brews, sours, wild, and spontaneously-fermented ales.”
This is a great part. No need to go the monster size bottle route here.
“Because of the extremely limited nature of these beers, there will be no general distribution of Box Set releases. Individual tracks, priced at $15 each, will be available exclusively in the brewery tasting room on a first come, first serve basis and will be required to be opened and consumed on premises to prevent unauthorized re-distribution. Empty bottles may be taken off premises but will include measures to prevent counterfeit re-packaging.”
OK. Seems a bit extreme. But what “measures” are they going to do to the bottles? Why bottle it at all? Just keg it and give people a label sticker and let them collect them like baseball cards. Saves you TTB trouble too and anyone who buys a bottle with that sticker on it will eventually find out they have been suckered.
“The first track, an ode to Van Halen’s 1978 anthem, “Runnin’ With The Devil”, is scheduled for release January 21, 2012. Details will be available on The Lost Abbey website in mid-January. Subsequent tracks will be released the third Saturday of each month throughout the year, culminating in the release of the full 12-bottle packaged gift set in early December.”
Do you have to drink the gift set in one sitting in the tasting room? Good choice of starting song though.