After crushing it with an early release in 2020, Four Peaks Brewing Co., Arizona’s largest brewery is making Pumpkin Porter available in bottles and kegs in August again this year. Fans will be able to get their first taste of this year’s batch of Pumpkin Porter on draft at Four Peaks’ 8th Street brewpub in Tempe on Friday, August 6. Bottles will begin landing in grocery stores and independent bottle shops throughout the brewery’s distribution footprint the following week.
“We released Pumpkin Porter early last year because summer 2020 sucked; we just wanted to get it over with and skip ahead to fall,” says Four Peaks co-founder and head brewer Andy Ingram. “It was going to be just a one-time thing, but we discovered that people just love drinking Pumpkin Porter, even when it’s 105 outside. Maybe especially when it’s 105 outside.”
SweetWater extends 420 brand for first time with 420 Imperial IPA
SweetWater Brewing Company LLC announced the launch of 420 Imperial IPA – the first line extension off of its flagship 420 brand. The big, deep, copper-colored Imperial IPA is well-balanced with the right amount of hop bitterness and malty sweetness, combining traditional and modern hops to create flavor and aromas of mango, peach, pineapple, citrus and pine. IPA lovers will savor the blend of 2-row, Munich and C70/80 grains as well as Centennial, Cascade, Columbus, Mosaic, and Sultana Midnight Wheat Hops as well as Mosaic, Sultana, Lotus, and Cascade Dry Hops.
“Our 420 Extra Pale Ale has been on the Mount Rushmore of craft beer for 24 years,” said Brian Miesieski, Chief Marketing Officer at SweetWater. “We are taking things to a whole new level by bringing a new style to one of the most well-known names in beer – our 420 brand. This heady new brew leverages one of the most coveted innuendos and bar calls in craft, but delivers a new bigger, bolder IPA style that’s right in the wheelhouse of our brewers.”
The 420 Imperial IPA packs a punch while maintaining delicious drinkability. With an ABV of 9.1%, this brew has a higher ABV than the standard Imperial IPA. 420 Imperial IPA delivers adventurous flavors and aroma from a fresh combination of hops for added intensity and complexity without sacrificing quality, great taste, and straight-up beer drinking enjoyment.
“We took the original base recipe from our 420 Extra Pale Ale, then dialed it up with more malt and hop varieties to deliver bigger, bolder flavor and flip it to an IPA,” said Brew Master Mark Medlin. “This true-to-style imperial IPA has a malty sweetness balanced with a variety of hops to create flavor and aromas of mango, peach, pineapple, citrus, and pine. While the flavor journey is much more intense, 420 Imperial IPA still finishes clean just like its namesake.”
Tröegs’ Lucky Holler inspired by hop harvest trip
Tröegs Independent Brewing announces the release of Lucky Holler, a hazy IPA inspired by the brewery’s annual hop selection trip to the Pacific Northwest. Like many of its beers, the recipe development for Lucky Holler began through the brewery’s small-batch Scratch Series. After several test batches, the brewing team hit on a hop combination of Citra, Simcoe and the Australian variety Galaxy to deliver bright waves of ripe pineapple, juicy citrus and passionfruit.
“We go to Yakima to select hops for the beers that everybody knows and loves,” says Tröegs brewmaster and co-founding brother John Trogner. “Beers like Perpetual IPA, Nimble Giant and Nugget Nectar. And we’re also open to discovering new hops or combinations that might inspire us, those ‘a-ha’ moments where a new recipe starts taking shape.”
Providing the beer’s hazy profile, the backbone of Lucky Holler is built with malted oats, pale malt, unmalted wheat and white wheat. Weighing in at 6.8% ABV, Lucky Holler joins the brewery’s popular Hop Cycle series of seasonally rotating IPAs.
True North launches Forest Haze as a core brand
True North Ale Company announced the launch of Forest Haze Juicy Double IPA, adding to its offering of year-round core brands. Big sibling to Northern Haze, our flagship, Forest Haze has a big body, pillowy mouthfeel, huge aromatics, and a powerful juiciness. Galaxy, Cryo Citra, and Cryo Simcoe hops produce bold flavors and aromas of passion fruit, peach, stone fruit, and juicy orange citrus. Forest Haze weighs in at a very drinkable 7.7% ABV.
“We are adding to our core lineup for the first time in three years, since the launch of Northern Haze in the late spring of 2018,” said Jake Rogers, Founder and Chief of Brewery Operations. “Northern Haze has been a huge success and we expect Forest Haze to complement it with a slightly higher ABV and a robust flavor profile.” Added Head Brewer Seth Barnum, “Several test batches were brewed during the first half of the year, then critiqued by our Taproom patrons. The result is Forest Haze, brewed with cryogenically processed hops to tremendously boost the hop character in the finished beer.”
Meet Hi-Wire Brewing’s releases for August
The first batch of Hi-Wire Brewing’s Great American Beer Festival gold medal-winning Zirkusfest Oktoberfest (6% ABV) just went into cans, and this German-style Märzen is as delicious as ever. Use of rich Munich malt provides upfront biscuity and honey flavors that fade into a light, dry finish.
Blending together a heap of fresh summer blueberries with a mountain of ripe, juicy peaches, the latest edition of Hi-Wire’s Sour Smoothie Series is the creamy and dreamy Blueberry Peach Milkshake (5.5% ABV) boasting delectable notes of tart peach gummies and sweet blueberry jam. This sweet, tangy, and smooth sour treat was brewed with 100 pounds per barrel of fruit mingled with tasteful additions of vanilla and lactose.
Asheville Loves Y’ALL (6.8% ABV), a collaboration with Wicked Weed Brewing located just down the street from Hi-Wire’s production brewery in Asheville, is a tropic-forward West Coast-style India Pale Ale leaning heavily into well-loved dank and piney West Coast hops.
“Good beer and good times is the ethos here at Hi-Wire, and we are thrilled to have teamed up with the crew at Wicked Weed for both,” proclaimed Cory Cunningham, Hi-Wire Brewing’s Sales Director who was previously Wicked Weed’s National Key Account Manager. Cunningham continued, “Our love of balanced and approachable and their mindset to ‘drink different’ has made this collaboration a lot of fun… and a damn delicious beer.”
Seek out hops in Deep Ellum’s new series
Deep Ellum Brewing Company launched Hop Seeker West Coast IPA (7.3% ABV), the first release in the new Hop Seeker IPA series. Without hops, there could be no beer, and in our book, that makes it one of the planet’s important natural resources. Hop Seeker, the obsessed mystic, travels the natural world in search of IPA’s star ingredient – the juiciest, piney-est and dankest almighty hop. His first yield is a juicy west coast inspired IPA brewed with Mosaic hops from the Pacific Northwest. It starts off gentle with fruity aromas and finishes with a piney bite.
“For this initial release we pulled inspiration from some of our favorite breweries on the west coast that are making huge waves with IPAs. Consider this a tribute to everything we love about the modern revival of the west coast IPA. Clear, crisp, and packed with some of our favorite hops.” – Brian Morris, DEBC Head Brewer.
Green Man Brewery with 11th edition of Hazy Homage
Asheville, NC’s second-oldest brewery Green Man Brewery has released the 11th edition of their Hazy Homage series– The Grateful Haze. This Grateful Dead inspired tangerine and grapefruit forward hazy IPA comes from a specialty line of hazy IPAs launched quarterly, each dedicated to a particular band or artist. Previous features include Nine Inch Nails-inspired Pretty Haze Machine, David Bowie-inspired Hazy Cosmic Jive, and the original Van Helen-inspired Van Hazy IPA.
The Grateful Haze features layers of citrus, creamy coconut from the Sabro hops, mango, dried apricot and candied pineapple. It is lactose-free, 6.8% alc./vol. and comes in a four-pack of 16 oz. cans. Its packaging stands out because of its four unique can designs per pack, a first for Green Man and a rarity in the beer business.
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