Follow Sean Inman to the best in craft beer
It was a dark and stormy night… actually it has been cool by LA standards but this is still a sun city and when I find flavorful session beers of any style, I am happy. And I found one in the organic OB-1 from Snake River Brewery. Now I am 74% of the way to my goal with 3 1/2 months left!
We dip back into New Zealand to look at an organic brewery by the name of Mike’s. I like that they celebrate both mom and dad. (Some organics forget the male of the gender) “mike’s is committed to offering you the very best quality organic beer that we can produce. Joining us are mother nature, who supplies all of the ingredients, and father time, who matures the beer for us.”
Their IPA sounds like a bitter treat:
“Inspired by the hoppy English pale ales but leaning toward the highly hopped American variety. Pours rich golden amber with a faint haze and a creamy white head settling to a fine veil. The aroma is complex with tropical fruit including passion fruit, pineapple and melons all vying for attention.
The flavour is something to behold, with the sweet tropical fruits now balanced out by the strong biscuity malt flavour and absolutely intense hop bitterness. The very full mouth feel and glowing warm aftertaste serve to further keep the hop bitterness in check.
This is an extremely hoppy beer, if the drinker is not partial to hops, they might struggle with this drop. For the true hop heads, this is nectar to be savoured.
Serve chilled in small stemmed goblets, to be sipped on cool Autumn evenings. This beer needs to be treated with respect, weighing in at 9.0% ABV, it’s no lightweight and should be shared with good company.”
The kick-off to craft beer in Oregon month starts here for me with the North American Organic Brewers Festival, and it starts TODAY!
Here are some of the breweries you will find at Overlook Park in Portland:
Elliot Bay
Captured by Porches
Hopworks Urban Brewing
Laurelwood
Natian
Oakshire
For people who are near the Okanagan Valley in Canada (count yourself lucky)
“Crannóg Ales is Canada’s only Certified Organic farmhouse microbrewery, one of only a handful of such breweries in the world. We brew unfiltered, unpasteurized ales using only organic ingredients, some of which come right from our own farm. All our ales reflect the Irish tradition of brewing full-flavoured, complex ales which are also great session beers.”
This brewery is in the top three of beer sights to see. I love their ethos and passion. It is part of why I am drawn to beer. Brewers and drinkers alike have a passion that is just great to be a part of, very infectious love of doing great things. Plus they have a beer called Back Hand of God. I love that.