People often ask me “Chris, what’s your favorite beer?” To which I respond, “Wow, if I had a zwickel every time someone asked me that, I could open my own brewery!” Then they say, “Prove it,” and hand me a zwickel from beneath their cloak. “Start a brewery.” They then point their sickle at me and disappear. I take a minute to let the smoke clear, turn back to the bar, slide the zwickel to a customer and say “OK. That’ll be 5 cents.” Then the customer says, “That’s all you got? No IPAs?” and leaves. Sigh. Just another typical fickle customer here at Chris’s Nickle Craft Beers. Maybe I need to rebrand? What a pickle. Here are six other beers to know this week.
*Reaches into cloak*
New Realm Brewing goes with New Zealand hops for new DIPA
Behold, the king of Double IPA’s, the Tyrannosaurus Flex, a Hazy DIPA from New Realm Brewing hopped exclusively with hops from New Zealand. Wai-iti, Motueka and Rakau hops combined with Norwegian Kviek yeast gives this monster DIPA a cretaceous amount of juicy, fruity notes such as mango, pineapple, peach, apricot and citrus. Balanced with an herbal, piney and lightly dank full body, this hazy beast is the ruler of the realm.
“Our team has been fortunate enough to be able to contract some really great hop varieties from Australia and New Zealand and we wanted the right beer to use them,” said Mitch Steele, cofounder and brewmaster of New Realm Brewing. “We used Proximity Pale Malt as the base malt, which is a relatively new craft maltster from Delaware. We also brewed this beer with flaked oats, American Wheat malt and used a two-stage whirlpool process in the brewhouse. The result is a monster of a beer that pours hazy gold with a thick head of foam.”
This Hazy DIPA is now available for a limited time on draft and in 16-oz four-pack cans in New Realm’s Atlanta and Virginia Beach brewery to-go coolers, as well as your favorite retailers around Georgia and the Hampton Roads area of Virginia.
Celebrate Day of the Dead with Elevation Beer’s Senorita Horchata Imperial Porter
Elevation Beer Co. is bringing back Senorita Horchata Imperial Porter, Peach Acide and False Summit for the season beginning this month. Also available this season is Elevation’s fresh hop ale, Downpour. Award-winning Senorita Horchata Imperial Porter will return in cans mid-October, just in time for Día de los Muertos. This 8.4 precent ABV Porter carefully balances flavors of chocolate malt, cinnamon spice and Madagascar Bourbon Vanilla with hop bitterness from Northern Brewer and Chinook hops. Senorita, which won bronze at the World Beer Cup, the Australian International Beer Awards and the European Beer Star, will be distributed in Colorado and Utah while supplies last.
Squatters’ Hell’s Keep wins a silver at GABF along with our hearts for its cool can design
Squatters Craft Beers earned a silver medal in the Belgian Style Blonde Ale or Pale Ale category for Hell’s Keep Belgian Style Golden Ale earlier this month at the Great American Beer Festival (GABF) held in Denver, Colorado. The win marks the fourth medal earned by the beer in GABF’s annual competition. Originally brewed in 2008, Hell’s Keep is a year-round brand in the Squatters portfolio.
“The flavors in Hell’s Keep are complex yet very approachable to virtually any beer drinker,” said Jon Lee, brewmaster and COO at Squatters. “This beer has a clean malt base with a well hidden 7.75 percent ABV and the majority of flavors we rely on here originate from the Belgian Trappist yeast. Spicy and fruity, this is a beer that tastes great by itself and also pairs well with almost anything you would want to eat.”
Oskar Blues Brewery teams with big-time mountain biker to brew latest IPA
Oskar Blues Brewery formed a multi-year partnership with Jeff Lenosky, legendary mountain biker and three time national champion. Oskar Blues has partnered with Lenosky to brew TB IPA, a beer named after Lenosky’s moniker, Trail Boss. TB IPA will be available in mid-November in six-packs of 12-oz cans and on draft at all Oskar Blues taprooms and will support Oskar Blues’ ongoing donation efforts toward Can’d Aid.
TB IPA is highly hopped with flavors of tropical fruit, pineapple, berry and citrus and balanced by an assertive malt framework lending notes of biscuit and toasted bread. At 4.9 percent ABV and 35 IBUs, TB IPA is a perfect post-ride refresher. The upcoming beer is a collaborative extension of Lenosky’s long-standing partnership with Oskar Blues and Colorado-based national nonprofit Can’d Aid. As a “Treads + Trails” ambassador for Can’d Aid and a sponsored Oskar Blues rider, Lenosky has hosted bike builds and bike donations across the country to help get nearly 3,000 bikes to low income children in the past 5 years.
Can’d Aid will host a bike build at the Oskar Blues Austin, Texas, taproom on October 23, during which Lenosky will make an appearance in order to lend a hand and answer questions about the soon-to-be-released brew. The public is invited to attend, build bikes and contribute some do-goodery alongside a renowned mountain bike athlete.
Hooray: Alaskan Brewing’s Winter Ale is back
As temperatures drop and the sunlight hours begin to wane, Alaskan Brewing Co. is bringing back a fan-favorite winter warmer: Alaska Winter Ale featuring Sitka spruce tips. First released by the brewery in 2000, the seasonal release of Winter Ale marks the transition to colder seasons for many dedicated Alaskan fans.
Winter Ale is brewed with spruce tips: the fresh new growth that emerges from the branches of Sitka spruce trees in the spring. This method of sprucing up beer is a tradition with a rich history in Southeast Alaska, with its use noted as far back as Captain Cook’s explorations, when the seafaring adventurers would add spruce tips to their brews to for flavor and to help fight off scurvy.
Spruce tips exhibit a citrusy, berry-like flavor that Alaskan Brewing Co. Head Brewer Rob Day said lends itself well to various brews. “We have experimented with spruce tips in other beer styles, recently adding brews like Spruce IPA and Cranberry Tart to our repertoire, but Winter was our original recipe to showcase the unique local ingredient,” said Day. “We brew Winter in the style of an English Olde Ale. It’s rich and malty with a clean, crisp finish of noble hops, with the spruce tips primarily coming through in the aroma.”
Urban Artifact brews a twist on the classic lemonade with Trivet
Each 30-bbl batch of Urban Artifact‘s Trivet consists of 750 lbs of cranberries, 200 lbs of lemon peel and 30 g of vanilla bean. Its aroma consists of lemon and cranberry with a subtle hint of vanilla that reminds one of a tall glass of lemonade. It is fun! The flavor starts out with bold notes of fruit punch followed by a subtle candy-like acidity, which comes from the lemon. The added taste of baked bread balances out the fruit flavors to create a bright and delicious drink. In case you were wondering, a trivet is a common tool found in kitchens around the world. It is used for protecting tables from hot dishes. It’s both functional and aesthetic. It’s kind of like that, only Urban Artifact’s gets you buzzed.
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