Follow Sean Inman to the best in craft beer
These are the beers that I wish I could taste for the first time.
Fieldwork Brewing has a new beer series coming for California and Oregon residents, called Way Back perhaps in a nod to the cartoon time machine. The focus will be on big and burly Imperial beers. But without a laundry list of added ingredients and in bottles.
Warm Flannel is the latest in the Scottish Wee Heavy style. Looking forward to a bit of a walk through of slightly forgotten styles that should be on menus more often, if I had my way.
Firestone Walker (Propagator) has added to the Pivo legacy with the new Slowvo Pils a collaboration with Bierstadt Lagerhaus from Denver. The famed Slow Pour – Side Faucet Pilsner Palace.
December saw the first distribution of presidential beer as Russian River’s Pliny for President 2024. “This new recipe is a triple dry-hopped IPA loaded with notes of citrus, stone fruit, tropical, pine and resin.”
Available in both draft AND bottles for the first time!
North Coast Brewing is one of the “old” breweries that beer people (including myself) sleep on a bit too much, but maybe a 35th anniversary ale will change your mind.
Plus, that it is cool to a fancy wrapped bottle like that.
I totally get a cheese and beer pairing but a cheesed up beer? Well Oregon’s Rogue Creamery has collaborated with Crux Fermentation Project in Bend on limited-edition, lambic-style ale brewed at Rogue Creamery’s cheesemaking facility. And it didn’t utilize the ingredients of any cheese. It was the cheesemaker’s famous blue cheese, Rogue River Blue.
Crux filled up their Coolship portable vat with uninoculated wort, drove that Coolship to the Creamery. Rogue River Blue cheese was pitched into the beer wort and overnight inside Rogue’s facility the yeast and the went to work.
Two years later that beer is now ready. I will be following reviews on Untappd to see what the tasting experience is like.
Another Braupakt collaboration is on the way between St. Bernardus in Belgium. and Weihenstephan in Germany. This EU beer will be a blonde ale that gets a bit high for a blonde at 6.5% abv.
Brasserie de la Senne has gone back in craft beer time to collaborate We on a new beer, Pete’s Wicked Tripel. That name should sound familiar because it is Pete Slosberg. The Pete of Pete’s Wicked Ale fame from way back in the day. Slosberg is into chocolate now so the beer a Tripel with cacao nibs.
The description sounds very nuanced and layered, “The result is a very complex and at the same time highly drinkable beer, despite having 8 ABV. At first in the aromas we find touches of green coffee. They blend with the fruity fermentation aromas, a beautiful maltiness and a touch of citrus. Secondly, the cacao will develop in the after taste, in all its complexity, warmth and length. The cacao nibs also played a part in the interesting full texture of the beer.”
Theakston has recently announced that the famed Old Peculier is returning to distribution in the United States.
Currently only on the East Coast but maybe a few will trickle West. The beer had an export run in the U.S. from 1976 to 2013 but ten years is a long time away. Absence might make the heart grow fonder though.
I am a big fan of Duvel’s barrel-aged program. And the next one is a very unique choice. Going the historical route with Brazilian cachaça from Brazil. Sorta like a rum relative.
Duvel snagged over 400 oak cachaça barrels for their cellars and after 8 months of aging achieved what they say is Duvel but with a “lively fruit punch, which then expands festively with notes of oak, dried nuts and vanilla.”
If I do see the Duvel Barrel Aged, The Brasil Rum Edition. You know I will pick it up.
Party Beer Co. made a tea IPA that I quite enjoyed and they have now teamed with LAMILL Coffee for a Coffee Stout that is made with a hint of sweet Tahitian vanilla bean, Catpuccino. Saw this a bit late but look for it in your local beer shoppes. A bit of a L.A. beer latte.