Looks like Sierra Nevada is keeping the pedal down on hops. A new variety pack is in the pipeline…
No trade names just FZMR2, HBC 472, HBC 438 and HBC 520, Nug-033 and Steiner 04190 are ones to look for.
Holiday Beer # 6 – Holiday Haze from Sierra Nevada
A new holiday offering from Sierra Nevada is our next featured beer, time to get Hazy for the Holidays….
Sierra Nevada – Hop v Hop
Let’s have a hop battle. Which do I like best from Sierra Nevada?
Celebration in one corner and Northern Hemisphere in the other.
Both the Wet Hop Northern Hemispher and the Fresh Hop holiday beers pour a nearly identical deep orange color.
Both are very malt forward. More red ales in my estimation. Both again are very dank and woodsy in Hop bitterness. I almost get like a cedar note from the NH and a toasted malt note from Celebration but I blind tasted this duo and thought at first that my wife had tricked me and poured the same beer in each taster glass. This were the only tiny differences in the beers.
Celebration wins in the end by a small amount due to that malt touch that adds a little sweetness to the strong woodsy bitterness.
Long Distance Brew Bro’s
Sierra Nevada does more collaborations in a year than most breweries do in five and they have another on in the pipeline. This time with the famed German brewery, Weihenstephaner. Looks to me that this might be a beer style that is tweaked.
Electric Collab
Chico’s Sierra Nevada has teamed with Reno’s The Brewer’s Cabinet for a new IPA that is electric, or Electrum which is a naturally occurring alloy of silver and gold. In this case the two ingredients are Amarillo hops and Simcoe powder.
Experimental X 3
Watch as the shades of green grow darker from Session IPA to IPA to DIPA with the latest series that utilizes the cutting edge of hops that Sierra Nevada can get.
Will this change each year? And which will be the favorite of the hop heads?
October in August
For the last three years, King of the Collaboration, Sierra Nevada Brewing Co. has created an Oktoberfest with a German brewery, to give it that more authentic taste. For 2017, Brauhaus Miltenberger is adding the Teutonic touch.
Cornelius Faust, a fourth-generation brewmaster for Brauhaus Miltenberger and his crew visited the East Coast outpost of Sierra Nevada to create the brew. “We used traditional techniques to create layers of rich malt notes that remain light and crisp to the taste. That’s the secret of an authentic fest beer—complex malt flavor in a lager that remains easy to drink while you are celebrating the Oktoberfest season.”
This year the beer will be in both bottles and cans and I have already seen it in my Trader Joes, possibly trying to stay out front of the pumpkin beer deluge that will be hitting us soon.
Across the World – Ranked – The 2nd Six
I have been slowly working my way through the Sierra Nevada Beer Camp variety box and the 12 beers therein. I have already ranked one half HERE.
Now here is my ranking of the 2nd half of the box…
1. Garage Project Campout Porter – a little too on the sweet side and with the name Campout, I expected some smokey malt to it. Otherwise solid.
2. Ayinger Dunkelweisse – Not an exciting beer. But this was straight up tasty. Excellent malt taste and way too easy drinking.
3. Fullers Atlantic-Style Vintage Ale – The plums seem non-existent but as you drink it, they really come into play.
4. Avery Dry-Hopped Barleywine – malty and sweet and hoppy all swirling around. Strong, strong tasting. Perfect for in front of the fireplace.
5. St. Arnold Dry-Hopped Berliner Weisse – A beautiful looking beer, great citrus wheat aroma and really tasty. Hops to sour balance is well-nigh perfect.
6. Duvel Hoppy Belgian-Style Ale – The Best of the Bunch. Shouldn’t be surprised since it is Duvel. Flavors everywhere. A bit dry. Nice touch of hops.
This group was much better by far. With only the Campout Porter being underwhelming. Maybe it was due to my expectations. I didn’t have grand expectations for St. Arnold or Ayinger or Avery due to the style. I had middling expectations for Duvel and it easily surpassed them.
Across The World – Ranked – The 1st Six
Earlier this month, I picked up the latest Sierra Nevada Beer Camp variety box and set about trying all 12 and ranking them.
Here is my hot take on the first six beers tasted and my ranked results:
1. The Bruery Raspberry Sundae – Points for really following through on the name. Strong raspberry notes and sweetness that the lactose really softens the edges from.
2. Surly Ginger Lager – Way too much ginger on this but I like that taste so even though the lager ½ of the name is overwhelmed, I enjoyed this.
3. Kiuchi White IPA with Yuzu – Nice IPA. Not earth shattering but the best of the first six easily.
4. Treehouse East Meets West IPA – Not super hazy. A bit juicy. Can’t avoid talk of Treehouse beers but this is only so-so to me.
5. Boneyard West Coast Style DIPA – Another hop bomb that I was looking forward to that just sorta sat there. Like Treehouse, I expected something more.
6. Mikkeller Thai-Style Ice Tea – Whereas the ingredients in The Bruery beer contrasted. This was a muddle. And unlike the Ginger Lager, I am not a fan of Thai Ice Tea so this gets the bottom score.
Overall, I expect the back six beers to be better. There will be (4) foreign to (2) US collaborations. None of these, that includes the raspberry, were great. The IPA’s didn’t have that extra something to elevate them even from each other. My expectations vs what was in the bottle had a large gulf in between them.
Twitter News Part 1 – Hoptimum
With Twitter moving so fast it can be hard to keep up with all the beer-y happenings. Here is 1 of 2 from the Land of Tweet….
Looks like Hoptimum had a recipe tweak from Sierra Nevada as well as a label re-work. Does the 2017 signify that the beer will rotate recipes?