Mikkeller SD beer looked north to Washington States Fremont Brewing for a new Mexican lager by the name of Operador Suave. What makes this an interesting fall choice is that corn tortillas were part of the ingredient list.
Tortilla
Loral Lager with HPB & Allagash
The Helpful SoCal Allagash Brewing crew paid a visit to Highland Park Brewing to do up a collaboration and come October, you can taste ½ of it. Below are the details from HPB…
“We got together & brewed up a hoppy lager using Loral hops as well as Roy Farms 1940 hops. Part of this brew will get canned & kegged for a future release. Another part of the brew will be put into oak barrels to finish fermentation there. Keep your eyes peeled for this beer to get released sometime in October.”
CCBA 30 in Liquid Form
The California Craft Beer Summit started yesterday but the first full day of events in Long Beach start today and to celebrate 30 years of California brewing, there is a celebratory beer, 30 Years Strong brewed with a group led by Three Weavers.
Cookie Collab
King Harbor has started up a bakery collaboration with fellow Redondo Beach business, Isabella’s Cookie Company. They have created “4 beers based on their amazing cookie recipes” and starting tomorrow, September 7th, they will release the beers…
Maui Wowie – Imperial stout w/ macadamia nuts, white chocolate, pineapple, and coconut
The Muffy – Imperial stout w/ white chocolate, blueberry, cacao, and lactose
Red Velvet – Red stout w/ cacao and vanilla bean
Hot Chocolate – Imperial stout w/ cacao and chipotle peppers
Last Lodging
Brouwerij West has been quietly notching some impressive collaboration partners like Great Notion most recently and now a new (closer) brewery in Pizza Port. Hotel Zebra is filled with Idaho 7, Comet, Simcoe and Citra to meld that dank San Diego Pizza Port profile to the softer and hazier Brouwerij West.
San Diego to Santa Rosa
Look for the highlights in this press release. I will explain at the end why I have highlighted them…
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“California brewery icons Russian River Brewing Company and Karl Strauss Brewing Company proudly introduce their collaboration beer, New California IPA. This modern India Pale Ale is the first collaboration between these storied institutions of California craft beer.
This beer focuses on each critical stage of hop addition: bittering, flavor, aroma, and dry-hopping. The star of this India Pale Ale is a rather new cultivar: the Pahto hop. It is a high-alpha hop that lends a palatable bitterness throughout the beer, while an all-star lineup of Strata, Ekuanot, Amarillo, and Idaho 7 hops deliver wildly diverse layers of flavors, from bright citrus to tropical fruit to resinous pine.
New California IPA will be available on draft and in 16oz can 4-packs beginning on August 1st (which is not-so-coincidentally IPA Day!)”
It is crazy to think that these two long-standing breweries hadn’t collaborated before. By this point it seems all breweries have collaborated with each other. Point two. Pahto hop? Where did that come from? Gonna have to look that up. Lastly, Russian River in cans, even if not done in Santa Rosa is a sign of change.
Kid Dangerous
Boomtown Brewery continues their Hazy series and this time it is dangerous as in LA Fashion company Kid Dangerous. If you like their fashion then the four-pack ($18), or tap versions should be just your type of risk.
Per the press release, the Hazy “will be full of delectable summer flavors like pineapples, ripe mango, and nectarines. Clocking in at a weighty 8.2%”.
Guin & Timm
I do not know when this beer came about, if it’s a retired beer or if it is being sold in the US but when I saw that Guinness spun two of their beers into a blend with Timmermans of Belgium, I really wanted it. This Lambic meets stout is a mix of Guinness West Indies Porter (1801), Guinness Special Export (first brewed in 1944 exclusively for John Martin) and Timmermans Oude Kriek (the world’s oldest lambic brewery).
The description from the Timmermans website sounds delicious, “A unique dark beer with a subtle pink hue in the foam. Aromas of chocolate, oak & cherry. Full flavoured and beautifully balanced.”
Lagervilla
If you can’t make it to the Figueroa Mountain Lagerville event this year, well you can take a little piece home with this 5-way collaboration on an Italian Style Pilsner. Central Coasters love the Tipopils and this looks to be an homage to that style.
To the West
Firestone Walker Brewing Co. meets Brouwerij Liefmans , and the result is the new collaboration,West Odnar. WO is a blend of Liefman’s Goudenband (a beer that I need to revisit), a beer aged with Viognier grapes, and a wild IPA. I will probably pick up a bottle (or 2) when in Paso Robles.