Follow Sean Inman to the best in craft beer
Three letters is all it took for me to want to drive to the Firestone Walker Propagator to pick up beer. G I N. I love beers that use gin barrels but they are hard to come by and temperamental as tequila barrels can be. But this latest cocktail beer sounds perfect for summer.
The latest Luponic Distortion from Firestone Walker is a Pacific Northwest three hop, one New Zealand and two German endeavor the trio includes “two with a softer, juicier character, and one with a more edgy citrus quality.” The German side features hops “that are among (Brewmaster) Brynildson’s favorite discoveries from his forays to a variety of family hop farms in Hallertau”. The final hop is, ironically, a mixture of American and German heritage.
Combined they form dragonfruit, pear and peach.
Last Friday I just could not shake the feeling that something was off. It wasn’t anything to do with the my little cocoon or the batshit crazy and sad week this country went through.
It was the first time that I really felt the absence of the beer community.
I don’t normally gain energy from being around people. Harsh truth be told, I could live without 45% of this country who think (refuse to have thoughts) in a certain way. And yet, the crowds of people who make the trip to Paso Robles are both fun and fascinating.
The two or three days that I spend at Firestone Walker HQ is like floating on air. I take the tour most years to see how things have changed (always drastically), I find beer to bring back home from their shop, I visit a distillery or winery, enjoy BBQ the night before the fest, get some Negranti Ice Cream and Twisted and Glazed Donuts. My internal battery is charged.
The festival itself, as I have written in the past, is perversely hard to write about. It is so smoothly operated that the only lead some years is how hot it is. You basically just have to write about the beer that you personally drank because there is so much that it is hard to wrap your word arms around it.
I would write up excited posts before driving up the 5 and exhausted post some after driving back down the 101. I don’t know if 2021 will be changed or disrupted by the events of this year but next year, I will return. I need to.
That boost was really missed this year.
Firestone Walker can do a wide variety of beers but even with that skill, there are some flavors that I do not associate with them. Pils, sure. IPA for sure. Sours and Wild Ales for damn sure. Barrel-aged of course but chocolate cherry stout? No doubt they will pull it off but I like that they are doing something off their Central Coast path. And canning it too.
Firestone Walker is headed into serious breakfast fruits for the upcoming Luponic Distortion. Blueberry meet Pomelo grapefruit for the next 2020 IPA in the series. I am hoping that at one point they will variety pack a few years worth of the series to make comparisons. But I am excited to taste this one.
Put together two sour blenders with great pedigree and you just might come up with something like Big Mood, a combo of BarrelWorks and Sante Adairus. Then French Oak and apricots to go along with the wine grapes.
News from Firestone Walker to pass on. A new Luponic Distortion is out with a Lychee tint to it and BarrelWorks has their first ever blueberry sour beer. The press release states that they are made with Bluecrop blueberries which I read as BlueCorp each time. As the photo shows, it is quite a pretty beer.
96 calories. That is all the Flyjack from Firestone Walker carries with it in it’s 120oz can.
Flyjack pours a light and crazy hazy yellow. A loud talker. Bubbles popping furiously as the foam dies down. Pineapple initially on the nose then I start to get some stone fruit. Watery which shaves away any crispness that the label claims. Nice but very soft.
Firestone Walker Invitational tickets went on sale and then sold old earlier today probably in no small part due to their exotic beers like this new Vintage coming out this year that takes a base Imperial Smoked Porter and then ages it in Bourbon and Cherry bitters barrels. The ingredient that I think will really make this one work is the sea salt. That may bind these other big flavors together.
2020 starts off hoppy for Firestone Walker as the 15th Luponic Distortion finds its fruity way to shelves. Then Propagator brings the grapefruit citrus into a single hop Citra Hazy.