Follow Sean Inman to the best in craft beer
Some breweries tend to go with hazy and others go with juicy when they are labeling their non West Coast IPAs. Los Angeles Ale Works uses the latter and have a new one you should check or or more appropriately check in to, Hotel Hazeway Juicy DIPA with “hoppy notes of peach, passionfruit, white grape and red currant.”
During L.A. Beer Week, Lincoln Beer Co. held a Collective Brew party. Now the hazy pale ale dry hopped with New Zealand Cascade is signed, sealed and ready. You could call it a democratically brewed beer.
Brouwerij West has come out with another creatively labeled IPA but this time not a hazy, “Cactus Eaters is our 6.8% ABV West Coast IPA brewed to celebrate the Pacific Crest Trail, hiking, and great summer trips. This beer features Alora, HS16660, and Mosaic. It’s super bright and clear with notes of peach, apricot, and lemon zest.”
Last week this time, Smog City Brewing unveiled a new more charitable Gorilla.
Combining with Crowns & Hops and their 8 Trill Initiative and the mission of achieving racial equity in craft beer and supporting up and coming black owned breweries is….
“This colossal Double IPA draws inspiration from our OG ape Amarilla Gorilla, the 8 Trilla Gorilla turns everything up to eleven and beyond. A ferocious infusion of Strata, Simcoe, and Citra hops rampage out of your glass with every sip. Strap in and prepare for an onslaught of amazing grapefruit, passionfruit, and fresh resinous pine so fresh you’ll swear you’re drinking hops straight from the bine.”
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.”
Every brewery, back in the day, would celebrate not only anniversaries but also when they reached batch number milestones. You don’t see it as much anymore but MadeWest has their Batch 1000 out now, “a triple dry hopped triple hazy IPA featuring Citra, Nelson and Idaho 7 hops.” With “aromas of tangerine, pink cotton candy and ripe mango.”
I am here for all the new rice lagers that are being released including this swinging door new beer from Benny Boy Brewing in East Los Angeles.
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.”
It’s been a bit since I have talked up Claremont Craft Ales but they have recently released their first New Zealand hopped beer….
If you haven’t visited their taproom, it is well worth the trip especially for a summer road trip.
It is always exciting to me when two new collaborators join forces. This cause for excitement is GameCraft Brewing Anaheim teaming with Beachwood Brewing for a Cold IPA, Ice Beam.
