Tags
Alpine Bad Boy, Alpine Duet, Alpine Ichabod Ale, Alpine Whale, Barrel-Aged Odin's Raven, Briscoe, Chez Monieux, New Millenium Pale Ale
Alpine Beer Co. sent out a newsletter this morning with some news about upcoming releases, as well as some not so nice info on a beer that won’t be coming back because of a cease and desist letter from another brewer.
Let’s get the bad news out of the way first. We won’t be seeing Ichabod Ale, Alpine’s Pumpkin beer that changes styles every year due to a cease and desist letter from Michigan’s New Holland Brewing which also brews a pumpkin beer by the name of Ichabod. Alpine’s newsletter states, “It seems they Trademarked the name right after we won the World Beer Cup medal for it in 2008. Let’s all let them know what we think of their dirty move.” Last year’s version was a sour beer aged in (white wine?) barrels that was just fantastic. If you’d like to let New Holland know what you think about their C&D letter they have a contact from on their website. Hopefully the two breweries can work something out and we can get Alpine’s Ichabod Ale next year.
Update: Beernews.org has a post up with some further info from both Alpine’s Pat McIlhenny and New Holland’s Bret Vanderkamp. According to Beernews Alpine has tried to work the naming dispute out with New Holland to no avail. Click through to read all of their comments, but this one from McIlhenny stood out to me: “He (alluding to New Holland’s Vanderkamp) would be well-served to have his beer mistaken for ours.”
Update 2: New Holland posted a message on their Facebook page which Beernews.org has reprinted.
Now on to the good news from Alpine.
A few weeks ago Alpine noted that they were unable to get any more Simcoe hops for the time being and would have to stop production of Duet. Well it seems they were able to work out a trade with another local brewery that had some Simcoe hops but needed some hops from New Zealand which Alpine did have. The short hiatus is over, and as Alpine says: “Long Live Duet!”
Bad Boy, (Alpine’s “other double IPA”) is being released on draft in the pub and will be available for growler fills at the brewery. Tuesday, September 27th will see the release of New Millenium Pale Ale one of my favorite Alpine beers (admittedly I’ve only had a few pints but fell in love, and then it was gone. Glad to see it back). It too will be draft only, pints in the pub and growler fills at the brewery.
Friday, October 7th will see the release of two beers, Whale and Barrel-Aged Odin’s Raven. Whale is a wet hop ale (WetHopAle), and amber brewed with fresh Citra and Simcoe hops. Again, no bottles of Whale will be available, it’ll be on draft in the pub and available for growler fills at the brewery.
Barrel-Aged Odin’s Raven on the other hand will make it in to bottles (and won’t be available for growler fills, although there will be a small amount available on draft in the pub). There are only 20 cases available so expect bottle limits, high prices (“The price of the 22 oz. bottles have yet to be determined, but it will be pricey”) and for it to not last long.
Also mentioned as being in production but sometime away are two sours, Chez Monieux and Briscoe. And a note on the next sour, it “will involve white peaches and apricots”.
Good things are happening at Alpine. They’re getting ready to present their Business Plan for expansion to interested investors.
They often post their newsletters to their blog, but this one isn’t up yet (although it may show up there soon).
San Diego Beer Blog 