Tag: Half Acre Beer Co.

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Selected Daisies

Hard to believe that Daisy Cutter from Half Acre Beer is 15 but time does fly.  In honor of that anniversary comes DC Select Double IPA, a collaboration with Sierra Nevada Brewing.

“For Daisy Cutter Select Double IPA, both teams hand-selected special lots of freshly harvested Centennial from CLS Farms, a fifth-generation family hop grower in the Yakima Valley. All agreed on a selection that presented punchy notes of sweet, bright citrus, with a touch of background earth. We used it to build a recipe that echoes the ages – Classic IPA.”

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Review – Trailing West – Firestone Walker Invitational Collaboration

This year the special Firestone Walker Invitational collaboration beer partner is Half Acre Beer. And the beer is Trailing West Pilsner.

First off, I am so glad any time a summer beer festival chooses a lighter beer style for their marquee beer. It is just smart. That being said, this is the first year of the FWIBF beers that I have been really m’eh on.

Maybe my expectations were too high. Maybe past beers have set a high bar. Either way this beer is not a favorite of mine. Firstly, it is labeled as a pilsner but it seems more a lager to me so right from the jump, I am on the back foot. It is also got a weird mix of corn and minerality that doesn’t mesh for me. If they called it a midwest lager, I would have rated it higher. But if pilsner was the target, they missed.

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Ahead & East

Each year Firestone Walker finds a partner and concocts their own Festbier and the style has run the beer gamut. Now we know this years beer is….

“Trailing West is this year’s Firestone Walker Invitational Beer Festival signature, collaborative release. A limited-edition pilsner made with our friends at Half Acre Beer, the recipe pairs a decoction mash of an Austrian barley variety over 100 years old with old-world Hersbrucker and Hallertaur Mittelfruh hops.”

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Half Acre Taste Test

Now that sixteen oz. cans are rolling into L.A. from Chicago’s Half Acre Beer, it is time to compare a few of their offerings. Daisy Cutter being too popular at the moment to get my hands on a can.
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Pony Pilsner – pours a light clear yellow. Bit of a potpourri aroma. A little slick. A bit of bubblegum. Would like a little more carbonation.

Akari – loads of wheat and toast notes here. Little tropical hop notes at first. But this is a wheat beer first and foremost.

Vallejo – Quite the impressionistic can design. Don’t remind me of Chicago much though. Beer pours a muddy yellow. Good balanced hop presence. Some fruit. Some pine resin. Crushable. Light.

I have had both Pony and Akari before so maybe the newness of Vallejo gave it a head start. I did like the balance of the IPA the best though. Pony was a bit too viscous and Akari weighted to wheat whereas Vallejo had a solid balance to it. Hopefully, more Half Acre is to be had in the future.

P.S. I also sampled a trio of Half Acre beers at the wonderful 38 Degrees in Alhambra. The ever-popular Daisy Cutter which is great as well as the Rainbow Never Ends which was a little too dank-centric for me as well as the Hot Tropic IPA which married coconut to hops in a better fashion than most I have encountered.

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Chicago to Long Beach

If you have heard of the famed Daisy Cutter Hoppy Pale Ale, well then you will want to be in Long Beach at Beachwood tomorrow night.
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Yeah, DC will be on tap alongside Akira American Wheat Ale, get Right Kolsch and Navaja DIPA for the very first time here in Los Angeles.

Thanks to a second brewery location, the Chicago brewery location has been expanding their beer’s reach.