Follow Sean Inman to the best in craft beer
These are the beers that I wish I could taste for the first time.
BFM Douze 12th Anniversary
“Jurassian Salty & Fruity Golden Ale”
from the label:“The Fleur de sel de Guerande, a noble sea salt from the Bretagne in France, is used to accentuate the flavors of this very special ale. Pair it with Green Poultry or Seafood. Sante!”
Ingredients: Swiss mountains spring water, barley malt, Cascade, Amarillo and Hallertauer hops, Fleur de Sel (sea salt 0.015%), yeast.
If you are heading to the crazy cool GABF (Great American Beer Festival) this year well then this may need to be put into the itinerary. Once you read the press release, you will want to drink the beer.
“Mutineer Magazine and New Holland Brewing Company are excited to announce the official release of their collaboration beer, Mutinous Battle Chai, on Friday, September 17th at 2pm at Falling Rock Taphouse in Denver, CO. The event will last until all the kegs are tapped. There is no admission fee and cost is per beer. 100% of the proceeds from Mutinous Battle Chai beer sales will benefit A Child’s Right, an organization dedicated to global water relief and bringing clean water to children in underdeveloped regions.
“We are really excited about our opportunity to work with New Holland Brewing, as we bring the craft beer community together to support A Child’s Right. We are very thankful to our partners in this project, New Holland Brewing Company and Falling Rock Taphouse, for making our vision a reality.” – Brian Kropf, Mutineer Magazine
Technically, Mutinous Battle Chai does not fit the guidelines of any individual style category. The base beer was brewed with both pale and rye malts, spiced with an original interpretation of the traditional chai tea spice blend, and fermented with a Belgian wit yeast strand. The base beer was primed with brown ale wort and then underwent a secondary fermentation with merlot yeast on oak. The end result is a dry, amber-colored, medium-bodied Belgian-style spiced and oaked ale unlike any craft beer brewed before.
Other beers from New Holland Brewing Company, including Golden Cap Saison, Imperial Hattter IPA, as well as Hatter Royale Hopquila, a distilled spirit that has been steeped in hops, will also be available during the release party. This is the first time that New Holland beer will make an appearance in Colorado outside of the Great American Beer Festival.
“This collaboration has been an opportunity to have fun exploring flavor, and techniques, while celebrating this exciting time in the beer industry.” — New Holland’s Beervangelist, Fred Bueltmann
For more information on the recipe and brewing process of Mutinous Battle Chai, check out Issue 13 of Mutineer Magazine, now on newsstands.”
Scottish craft beer is on the rise. BrewDog gets the press but if you dig, you can find some really good beers like those from West Brewing.
Like…
St. Mungo
“Our beer homage to Glasgow’s Patron Saint and fellow brewer. Mungo is a clean and crisp amber-coloured lager beer with a distinctive malt sweetness and subtle hop bitterness, including refreshing notes of vanilla and citrus.
A very drinkable and palette- cleansing beer, excellent with food. (ABV 4.9%)”
Tallgrass is a Kansas based brewery that is into the can thing. This beer caught my eye recently…
OASIS
(ABV 7.2%, 93 IBU)
“Oasis is a Double ESB/IPAish beer that came about from playing around with one of Jeff’s favorite homebrew recipes. Here at Tallgrass we love malt and we love hops, and this beer has both of them in record quantities; well, at least records for our baby brewery.
As our summer seasonal at 7.2% ABV and 93 IBU, Oasis is a big beer that has to be priced a bit higher than our regular line of beers. We think that once you taste the over-the-top hops and surprisingly sturdy malt backbone you will realize why it’s worth it.”
On the heels of “OREgasmic” comes Creek. A dual meaning beer name in the Chatoe Rogue series that also includes Dirtoir Black Lager and Single Malt Ale.
“Creek” is a cherry beer (AKA Kriek). Montmercy cherries to be exact. The beer is dedicated to the creeks of Oregon and the really large creek, the Willamette that is on the eastern edge of the Rogue hopyard.
As with the other Chatoe beers, all ingredients are incredibly local and all Oregon. Including their own Revolution hop and Dare and Risk Malts.
I’m a little over the pun riddled “hoppy” beer names and have moved on to more elegant solutions to the beer name conundrum. Don’t get me wrong. I am not going all snobby on you fine blog readers. It’s like watching a regular heist movie and then seeing the current hit Inception. The first can be well done but the latter has more layers and some nuance behind it.
And so does the beer I feature today Proper Job from St. Austell’s:
“Brewed with Cornish spring water, malt from locally grown Maris Otter barley and boasting a true west country name, at 5.5% ABV Proper Job is a perfect accompaniment to chicken, fish & cheese.Light, clear and refreshing with an assertive hop bitterness, Proper Job IPA is based on a traditional IPA recipe which makes it perfect for long, hot summer days.”
The term has a charged history dealing with the British Empire and “closing the deal” so to speak. As with most history, there are heroic aspects and poor choices, and that’s what makes this a great British beer name.
The name comes from
We finish the Caldera Kettle Series with this provocatively named creation…
San Diego County Session Ale is the latest in the lovely etched collaboration bottles to soon grace our ‘fridges. It was brewed over the course of the summer by Colby Chandler from Ballast Point, Mitch Steele from Stone and Kelsey McNair from a brewery I have yet to taste from called North Park Beer Co..
I am glad the session is taking over!
Does this sound great? Yes, it does.
A farmhouse brown ale with…
-pomegranate seeds
-grains of paradise
-Tasmanian peppercorns
from Upright Brewing
Another curve ball from Caldera. Was expecting a hop explosion and this is what I got…