Wanna see a great trick? OK, close your eyes and picture me holding a stack of beer press releases (I assume you can still somehow read this with your eyes closed). Pick out five, any five. Don’t show anyone. Write your name on all five, put them back and shuffle the stack. Still remember your five? OK, now load the shuffled stack of beer news into this nearby tree shredder. Don’t forget the ones you’ve chosen. After all of the papers have turned into dust, sweep it all up and put it into a recycling bin, please. Thank you. Now dump some coal on the recycle bin and light it on fire.
OK, by now it should be clear I have no idea what beers you have selected. Especially since I am no longer in the same room as you. Hop on that jet ski outside and follow the cadre of dolphins. And don’t forget those beers you picked! OK, the opening you see ahead in that natural rock formation is the start of a labyrinth. Take the wrong path inside, and unspeakable horrors await, so before entering, first consider how much you care about how this trick ends. There is time to turn back, and you have a family to think about. Except, about that. Look up. Yes. That is your entire family, being dangled from the edge of a cliff. Even your puppy Princess Wiggles. The only way to save them is to navigate this labyrinth and finish the trick. Don’t worry. Just keep thinking of your beer selections. They will guide you. Once you are at the center of the labyrinth there will be a pay phone. Pick up the receiver. Listen closely.
Open your eyes. Are THESE the beers you selected?
Thought so. It is my best trick. Anyway. Here are five other beers to know this week.
Lord Hobo shows off new packaging and year-round wheat beer
Massachusetts based, Lord Hobo Brewing Co.’s (LHBCo) beers will hit shelves next week, newly outfitted in full-wrap cartons. The addition of a Krones Inc. rotary canning line earlier this year has given the brewery an opportunity to improve their packaging with wraps that allow for greater billboard space and highlight their iconic black and gold logo-type graphics. The brewery will also release Angelica New England Wheat Beer to accompany Boomsauce, Glorious and Hobo Life as a year-round offering.
“Angelica is our first new beer release in over a year,” said Daniel Lanigan, CEO and founder of Lord Hobo Brewing Co. “We’ve been working hard at building our brand and business around a small core of offerings in order to better assess what products to add. With a growing, raving fan base comes a demand for a wide variety of products, and we’re extremely excited to be adding a wheat beer to the mix.”
While New England style is commonly assigned to IPAs, LHBCo set out to incorporate the beloved New England beer characteristics in a wheat beer. By utilizing brewing techniques and ingredients used in New England-style or Hazy IPAs, the brewery believes it was able to find the right marriage between the sought-after haze and juice-like qualities and the more traditional characteristics of wheat beer. The result is a highly quaffable beer that showcases the bready, tangy and elegant sweetness of a wheat beer with the juicy, tropical fruit characteristics attributed from the highly acclaimed Mosaic hop varietal.
The recipe development for the brewery’s New England Wheat was a year in the making, with LHBCo undergoing numerous R&D iterations. Lanigan noted, “Finding the perfect wheat and malt bill to italicize an elegant, fruit-forward hop varietal was an exciting challenge. Angelica, which comes in at 5.5 percent ABV, is a modern wheat beer developed for a wide-range of craft beer drinkers and beyond. Like her namesake, the beer is fucking beautiful!”
Breakside Brewery launches Rainbows & Unicorns
Portland’s Breakside Brewery announced the launch of Rainbows & Unicorns — the second in a series of four rotating IPAs in 2018. This session beer was originally created for the 2015 Oregon Brewers Fest and showcases two favorite hop varietals: Galaxy and Eldorado. Galaxy provides juicy notes that are reminiscent of peach and apricot, while Eldorado screams pineapple and lime zest. Breakside backs these up with a healthy dose of Comet hops, a heritage hop varietal, overlooked for many years and now gaining popularity again due to its intense stone fruit and citrus character. Also included in the summery brew are Two Row, Maris Otter, Flaked Rice and Light Crystal malts. Rainbows & Unicorns has an ABV of 5.1 percent and 32 IBUs.
“Rainbows & Unicorns toes the line between juicier and sweeter styles of IPA and the more classic West Coast hoppy pales,” said Ben Edmunds, brewmaster of Breakside Brewery. “Our team loves it for its clean, pure hop flavors. This one would be great at a backyard barbecue, paired with grilled octopus, smoked spare ribs or any spicy summer favorite.”
Breakside brews this beer in small batches, and it will be released in limited quantities from April through mid-July of this year, staying ultra-fresh until it quickly disappears. Look for it on draft and in 22-oz bottles.
Boulevard Brewing, Zipline use lupulin powder in new collabs
Boulevard Brewing of Kansas City and Zipline Brewing of Lincoln, Neb., are debuting a new collaboration that will employ lupulin powder, a.k.a. hop dust, to create two flavorful, complementary limited release beers. Boulevard’s Linkin’ Up Hop Dust IPA and Zipline’s Gettin’ Down Hop Dust Double IPA will hit shelves and taps throughout the breweries’ home markets in early June.
Each brewery put its own spin on the concept. Boulevard’s Linkin’ Up includes a liberal dollop of hop dust and a medley of favorite varietals that deliver bright, juicy notes of pineapple, mango and bubble gum. Linkin’ Up will be available in kegs and six-packs of 12-oz bottles. Zipline’s bold Double IPA, Gettin’ Down, will roll out in kegs and 750-ml bottles. It features Galaxy hops and Mosaic hop dust to produce a dank flavor profile of lychee and tropical fruits for what Zipline hopes is an out-of-this-world experience.
A number of events are in the works for Lincoln and Omaha, Nebraska and the greater Kansas City area.
Two Roads’ Sour Series turns to Sauvignon blanc grapes
Two Roads Brewing Co. is adding to its Tanker Truck Sour Series lineup with a gose-style ale that will be brewed with Sauvignon blanc grapes and kettle-soured in a tanker truck located at the brewery in Stratford, Conn. Arriving just in time for the warmer weather, this new brew is a blend of the crisp, mineral, tropical fruit and gooseberry flavors you expect from Sauvignon Blanc wine, combined with the salty, refreshing tartness of a gose beer.
Two Roads Master Brewer, Phil Markowski, says “we are always on the lookout for novel high-acid fruits that lend themselves to use in a gose, and Sauvignon Blanc grapes definitely fit the bill. I first experimented with brewing wine grapes back in 1996, so I am thrilled to be launching this wine grape-brewed beer some 22 years later.”
Two Roads launched the Tanker Truck Series in 2017 as a mark of its passion for this style of ale, and the new Sauvignon Blanc release follows other acclaimed flavors including Persian Lime and Passion Fruit. The series is named after a former milk tanker that is parked within the grounds of the brewery. It is used to brew Two Roads’ sour beers to allay concerns about bringing bacteria into the main brewery. By keeping the souring bacteria contained within an on-site tanker, away from the most sensitive areas of the brewery, Two Roads is able to safely produce its “kettle” soured beers.
Devil’s Canyon Brewing adds Hefe to Kaleidoscope series
San Carlos, Calif.-based Devil’s Canyon Brewing Co. is releasing a Hefeweizen as part of its seasonal Kaleidoscope series. The Bavarian-style beer debuts on draft and in 22-oz bottles starting May 4 in the brewery’s taproom and at select retailers. It is made with California oranges, which is a nod to its region’s agricultural history.
The Kaleidoscope series itself plays on seasonality, with quarterly releases that reflect consumer tastes that change with the weather by taking classic styles and adding unexpected flavors. Future brews in the series include a Pilsner in time for late summer months and a Cream Ale to coincide with the holidays.
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