Mohawk Bend has a guest tap each and every month and this month I was totally geeked out by the choice of Gigantic Brewing of Portland. So of course, I had to be there when brewer Ben Love was in town and to see what goodies were to be tapped for his visit.
I ordered up the flightso that I could check out a couple beers that I had not sampled from their line-up including the Kiwi-Collaboration PDXNZESB and then just sorta hung out with brewer Ben Love at the bar and chatted. Primarily about his very recent trip to New Zealand as part of Beervana collaboration with 8 Wired brewery and then about his short time in LA as well as some talk about hop contracts.
Of the five beers that I sampled, the one that I came back for a full pour was the Pipewrench Gin Barrel IPA. It was so fragrant and the gin added a dimension to the hops that really worked. It was more gin than IPA but very distinctive. The IPL and the ESB tied for 2nd in my mind. They also have keg versions of their core IPA and their Volta Saison. It would be well worth the trip tom Mohawk to sample some great Portland beer.