If you wanted to build an IPA dream team, starting with Beachwood Brewing and Firestone Walker would be a solid choice.
I like the old travel to the Golden State bear on the label as well.
Bears on Waves
Review – 2 Fremont Collaborations
Fremont Brewing of Seattle (and Earth) has a pretty solid reputation and thankfully we get a bit of their beers here in L.A. Specifically a couple of IPA collaborations with sone equally well-known breweries…
Let’s start with Specific Void the ominous sounding IPA with Burial Beer Co.. Even the NW Fremont bird on the label has a museum exhibit quality to it.
This smells very NW to me. Pine backed by a slight fruit note. Very precisely targeted. Little banana on the taste. More malt than hops initially. Has a soft quality to it. Tastes closer to a Belgian Pale Ale to me and not in a bad way.
The next partner is Bale Breaker who also farm hops, so why not put those hops into a Cold IPA, Cultivision. Bird seems a little less goth on this label. Great aroma here. Quite earthy and dank to start. Very crisp. A bright yellow color to this one. Grassy overall.
I would take the Cultivision over Specific Void based just on crispness alone.
NamiPA
For the fourth year running, Pizza Port has combo’d with Pure Project on a beer and for 2022 that beer is Nami. An IPA, which you probably already guessed. What struck me was how pretty the label was, that Japanese inspired blue ocean is very cool.
OG
Here is another collaboration beer alert – OG IPA from Kern River Brewing teamed with L.A’s El Segundo Brewing .
The details – “The goal was to wind back the clock to before things got Hazy and celebrate the California IPA before it became known as “West Coast”. Maybe we are just old-fashioned, but we still feel out about the beers people were making decades ago and raise a glass to those O.G. HOP INNOVATORS. with Citra, Centennial and Amarillo hops; piney and dank with lemony citrus notes.”
Straw-barb Pastry
I think I have reached my upper limit of beers with “friends” in the name but I do want to see more of the strawberry-rhubarb combo. You win some and you lose some.
Ogopogo Brewing has San Gabriel Valley’d with Hop Secret Brewing for this new pastry sour.
Actually
Fresh off of a collaboration with El Segundo where they brewed up trouble, Ogopogo Brewing is at it again with this time with BareBottle ‘Actual Friends’
This effort is “a DDH Hazy IIPA 8.5% with Nelson, Citra, Incognito Citra, and Nelson CGX.”
Take the 405…
…to a stange filled with Kolsch from Project Barley and Far Field Brewing.
Review – Humans Vs. Wizards
Time to choose a side. Wizards and Hazies or Humans and West Coasties?
This challenge comes to us from Smog City and Three Weavers and their two IPA’s…
We start with…
More Wizard Than Human Hazy IPA – fruit plus Sweet Tart on the aroma. Soft on the palate. The bitterness is there but more lurking than upfront. The spell of hops is from Strata, Cashmere and El Dorado. I get some tea like notes from the Strata plus a little twisted malt note.
More Human Than Wizard West Coast IPA – according to the label art, much bigger hops used. Though really it is the same big three just expressed differently. Tilted more British in styling with a bready note. More earthy and woody and no fruit.
Verdict – I like the fruity notes in the hazy over the earthy in the West Coast. I also like the wizard over the Thor like dude with the big H mash paddle.
Decocted Propagator
Looks like Firestone Walker is back into the pilsner game with this collaboration with St. Petersburg, Florida’s Green Bench Brewing.
Dabbling in Decoction from Firestone Walker’s The Propagator beer will be an American pilsner that hits 4.7%
Three is Too Many
Personally, I think there are too many Sean’s in the wild but there are probably way more Brian’s. Ponder that with…
…the new Italian Pilsner concocted by Lucky Luke Brewing with HopSaint Brewing.