(Not Quite) San Diego Brewed: Butcher’s Brewing Free Range IPA

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Free Range IPA, Knight Salumi, Rey Knight

I say not quite San Diego brewed because Butcher’s Brewing is currently contract brewing their beers at other locations (including Irvine’s Bayhawk) while they are working towards opening their own brewery in Carlsbad.

Butcher’s Brewing is the brainchild of Rey Knight, formerly of Knight Salumi Co. I talked to Knight at Bottlecraft a few weeks ago for the Free Range IPA release and one thing that stood out was the fact that he wasn’t shy about the beer being contract brewed for now. In my opinion there’s nothing inherently wrong about contract brewed beers, it’s when companies try to hide the fact that their beer is contract brewed that bothers me. Knight told me where the beer was made (they use two different facilities) and told me about his plans to open their own brewery here in San Diego County.

Free Range IPA isn’t a perfect beer, but it’s a great start from such a young brewery. The 7% ABV beer is hoppy with that sweet tropical fruit smell and flavor of Nelon Sauvin hops. Free Range IPA also uses Summit hops, which some people perceive as smelling and tasting like garlic or onions, but I don’t get any of that from this beer. It’s hoppy, but not a total hop bomb, there’s a bit of toasty malt, not overly sweet but it’s there. I prefer a more dry, totally hop forward, hop bomb of an IPA, which this isn’t, but it’s not bad and isn’t a bad start.

Free Range IPA is worth trying, but it may be hard for them to compete in such a crowded market. I paid $8.59 for this 22oz bottle at Bine and Vine, which is around the same price (or even more expensive) than other tried and true IPAs and Double IPAs like Alpine’s Nelson, Ballast Point’s Sculpin or Port Brewing’s Mongo. (This problem of pricing isn’t unique to Butcher’s Brewing, it’s a problem many new breweries face). This is one style of beer where Butcher’s will have plenty of competition, but this isn’t a bad start. Free Range IPA might not be my favorite IPA, but I’ll certainly drink it again.

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San Diego Brewed: Green Flash Palate Wrecker

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palate wrecker

I don’t think I had ever had Palate Wrecker before this latest batch was released a few weeks ago – Palate Wrecker is now Green Flash’s Spring Seasonal available in 12oz four packs and 22oz bombers throughout Green Flash’s distribution area – the name always sort of turned me off. I know, don’t judge a book by it’s cover (a beer by it’s name?) but every time I saw Palate Wrecker on draft there were a few other beers I wanted to try also, beers that weren’t close to 10% ABV and didn’t imply that they would wreck my palate, so I opted for others instead.

Now that Palate Wrecker is available in bottles I figured I’d give it a shot. The first thing that caught my eye was the brewing process, from a press release Green Flash sent out announcing the beer’s release:

Chuck Silva came up with a new method to make intensely hoppy IPA by performing a double brew to make a single beer. First, there is a single infusion mash and subsequent boil at 65 IBU with Columbus and Centennial hops. Then a second, duplicate mash using the 65 IBU wort instead of water and another 65 IBU boil using the same hop schedule. The result is a higher gravity beer with kettle caramelizing in place of crystal malts, an elevated hop flavor and bitterness that could not be achieved in a single brew.

I don’t know of any other beers made like this, maybe they’re out there, but I’ve never heard of them. In the wrong hands a beer like this could turn out pretty bad, but Chuck Silva knows what he’s doing when it comes to stuff like this.

So the brewing process is cool, but how’s the beer? Not bad, but not really my thing. There are a lot of people that love this beer, like go crazy for it. I’m not a huge fan of sweeter Double IPAs, and while this one apparently doesn’t use crystal malt there’s plenty of carmelization from the double brew. I’ll drink it, but I probably won’t order a second pint when I’m done. It’s plenty bitter but I don’t pick up much hop flavor, the malty caramel like sweetness and bitterness dominate.

I picked up this single 12oz bottle at Bine and Vine for $3.29 (it’s a bit cheaper per bottle if you buy a four pack) and also available in 22oz bottles.

San Diego Brewed: Stone Brewing Co. Old Guardian

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2012 Old Guardian, old guardian barleywine

San Diego Brewed is sponsored by Bottlecraft.

Bottlecraft is a retail shop and tasting room in Little Italy showcasing local, domestic and international craft beers. They offer hundreds of beers for your enjoyment in their onsite tasting room or to-go, as well as daily beer flights, events, glassware, merchandise, and gifts. Open Noon-10pm seven days a week. 2161 India Street, San Diego, CA 92101.

I’m not a huge Barleywine fan, but enjoy them enough and try to have one from time to time. Stone Brewing Co.’s Old Guardian is probably one of the first I ever had (it was either Old Guardian or Sierra Nevada’s Bigfoot). I was a bit fan of the Belgo Old Guardian last year, so much so that I don’t think I had the regular version at all.

From what I can recall Stone tweaks the recipe of Old Guardian from time to time, this year is no exception. “For 2012, we made a deliberate effort to move away from the English hop influence of the past few years,” Brewmaster Mitch Steele said in a press release. “We took out the East Kent Golding hops and used a blend of American Chinook, Calypso and Cascade, which gave strong hints of grapefruit and pine to the aroma and flavor.”

First off, this is a beer that needs to warm up. Take the bottle out of the refrigerator and let it sit out longer than you think is necessary. Don’t guzzle it down while it’s too cold or you’ll miss much of the flavor.

At 11% ABV it’s boozy, and at 85 IBUs it’s hoppy, but there’s so much rich flavor from the malts that, while I wouldn’t call it balanced, it all comes together pretty well.

I often don’t think much about food pairings, but a beer like this I knew needed something that could compliment it well. I picked up some Stilton Blue Cheese (which just so happened to be on the recommended pairing list, thank you Dr Bill). The Stilton complimented the beer perfectly, the rich, creamy cheese coats your mouth and starts to prepare your taste buds for the intense flavor to come. The beer washes the cheese away as you drink, perfectly transitioning from rich creamy cheese to big hoppy, malty beer.

I don’t remember it well enough from year’s past, but I have to say I think the aggressive American hops might be a bit much for me. Though surely many fans of super aggressive West Coast IPAs will enjoy it.

Note: Stone provided this bottle free of charge as a press sample, but 22oz bottles are on the shelves at better beer shops where Stone is distributed (including Bottlecraft)

San Diego Brewed: Iron Fist Velvet Glove

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Velvet Glove

San Diego Brewed is sponsored by Bottlecraft.

Bottlecraft is a retail shop and tasting room in Little Italy showcasing local, domestic and international craft beers. They offer hundreds of beers for your enjoyment in their onsite tasting room or to-go, as well as daily beer flights, events, glassware, merchandise, and gifts. Open Noon-10pm seven days a week. 2161 India Street, San Diego, CA 92101.

Velvet Glove is probably my favorite beer in Iron Fist’s small but growing lineup. It’s a 9% Imperial Stout that differentiates itself fairly well from the competition.

It smells just like you’d expect: roasty, reminiscent of dark chocolate, vanilla with a bit of strong booziness in there as well. But it’s the taste that sets it apart. I’m a big fan of Imperial Stouts, and I often pick up on the roasted flavors, which typically reminds me of coffee. But Velvet Glove doesn’t have that so much.

There’s a bit of roast in there, but it reminds me much more of good dark chocolate, maybe with just a bit of creamy espresso. It’s a touch on the sweet side, which also helps cause me to associate it with chocolate. There was a bit of fruitiness here, think dark pitted fruits, like a date.

The carbonation was spot on but the mouthfeel felt a little weak. It was thin, not really watery, but not what I expected from a beer with velvet in the name. Not a huge complaint, but I’d prefer a bit more body there.

Overall a nice beer. It’s certainly not the best Imperial Stout being made in San Diego, but it holds it’s own pretty well.

San Diego Brewed: Stone Brewing Co. Levitation Ale

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Levitation Ale, san diego session beer, session beers, stone session beer

San Diego Brewed is sponsored by Bottlecraft.

Bottlecraft is a retail shop and tasting room in Little Italy showcasing local, domestic and international craft beers. They offer hundreds of beers for your enjoyment in their onsite tasting room or to-go, as well as daily beer flights, events, glassware, merchandise, and gifts. Open Noon-10pm seven days a week. 2161 India Street, San Diego, CA 92101.

I’ve recently taken up running as a hobby (I’ve always been fairly active, cycling quite a bit, but have never been a runner) and decided I’d like to run a half marathon this year. While I’m still early in my training all this running has had some effects, both good and bad on my beer drinking. When my iPhone GPS app tells me I’ve burnt 800 calories on a run I take that as a free pass to drink an extra beer (or three). But it also means that after a long day at work when I want to crack open a beer I just can’t bring myself to drinking a big high ABV beer (which often come in 22oz bottles) because I know what that will do to my morale when the alarm goes off at 6am and it’s time to go out for a run. Thus, I’ve gotten a lot more interested in “session beers”.

While some beer geeks could argue about exactly what makes up a session beer for hours, I roughly define them as beers under 5% ABV, the word “session” comes into play because one could drink a handful of pints over a few hours during a “drinking session” and due to the low ABV still be able to walk out of the bar without being too drunk.

So it was one night after work, knowing I had to get up early, face the cold morning and go for a jog that I passed over the bottle of Pliny the Elder in the fridge for Stone Brewing Co.’s Levitation Ale. Levitation is a 4.4% ABV amber or red ale that I’ve had a handful of times in the past, but often pass up in favor of something with just a bit more kick.

Levitation Ale took the GABF Gold for American Style Amber/Red Ale in 2007 while competing against 67 other beers, which is an impressive feat considering many of those other beers were higher ABV so in some senses the brewers had more to work with.

I’ll just come right out and say I wasn’t too impressed with Levitation Ale. It wasn’t a bad beer, I just kept thinking of all the beers I’d enjoy more, sitting mere feet away in the refrigerator. (That said I was thanking myself in the morning when I got up before the sun that I didn’t drink any of those other beers, many of which are twice as strong as Levitation).

It’s got a toasty and earthy smell, a little sweet and a little hoppy that prepares you well for what’s in store. The taste is similar, it’s sweet malts up front think bread and toast as well as a bit more sweetness like caramel. Then the hop bitterness kicks in. This is actually where I was most disappointed, the finish was bitter as hell, with almost no hop flavor. There weren’t any of those delicious pine, citrus, tropical fruit or floral flavors so often tasted in a beer, just plenty of bitterness.

I will say that Levitation Ale had a great body and mouthfeel for being such a low ABV beer. It never felt thin or watery, and had I not known it was 4.4% ABV I doubt I would have guessed it was that low.

Levitation Ale does serve a purpose, it’s great those for those times when for whatever reason you can’t drink higher ABV craft beer (and you certainly wouldn’t be caught dead with a Bud Light) but compared to other craft beers it just doesn’t stand up. All things being equal though, it’s a fantastic sub 4.5% ABV beer.

Levitation Ale is pretty widely available around San Diego County (and other places you can find Stone’s beer). I picked this single 12oz bottle up at Bottlecraft for $1.55, usually it’s sold in 12oz 6-packs.

San Diego Brewed: Mission Brewery Dark Seas

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Dark Seas, Dark Seas Imperial Stout, Mission Brewing Dark Seas

San Diego Brewed is sponsored by Bottlecraft.

Bottlecraft is a retail shop and tasting room in Little Italy showcasing local, domestic and international craft beers. They offer hundreds of beers for your enjoyment in their onsite tasting room or to-go, as well as daily beer flights, events, glassware, merchandise, and gifts. Open Noon-10pm seven days a week. 2161 India Street, San Diego, CA 92101.

Mission Brewery produces a solid line up of core beers, their Hefeweizen is quite good, and all of their other beers can hold their own fairly well in my opinion. But when a brewery only makes the same five beers us beer geeks can get a little bored. Because of that I was pretty excited when they announced Dark Seas a Russian Imperial Stout a few months back. Unfortunately after trying it I think I’ll opt for a Hefeweizen next time I’m at Mission.

Dark Seas isn’t a bad beer, it’s just not for me. And when there are so many amazing Imperial Stouts we have access to here in San Diego, why drink one you’re not blown away by? My biggest complaint about Dark Seas was the sweetness, it just didn’t feel like there was much hop bitterness to balance out the sweeter malts. Caramel, toffee and a sweet roastiness all came to mind as I drank it. There’s a long and lingering roasted, almost burnt tasting bitterness from the roasted malt that leaves a bad impression after every sip. It felt low bodied and thin, fairly lacking for what I thought would be a fairly robust drinking stout.

I will say that I typically like my Imperial Stouts with a big hop kick, so if you don’t you may want to give Dark Seas a chance. I just couldn’t get over the sweet roastiness of it.

San Diego Brewed: The Lost Abbey Cuvee de Tomme

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Cuvee de Tomme

San Diego Brewed is sponsored by Bottlecraft.

Bottlecraft is a retail shop and tasting room in Little Italy showcasing local, domestic and international craft beers. They offer hundreds of beers for your enjoyment in their onsite tasting room or to-go, as well as daily beer flights, events, glassware, merchandise, and gifts. Open Noon-10pm seven days a week. 2161 India Street, San Diego, CA 92101.

The Lost Abbey’s Cuvee de Tomme isn’t cheap, but if you like sour beer it’s worth it. Cuvee de Tomme starts it’s life as another Lost Abbey beer, Judgement Day, but goes through a year long journey to become the final product. The most recent batch of Cuvee de Tomme was released on Christmas Eve, so this is the 2011 batch that is on store shelves now. The previous year, the 2010 batch was underwhelming and wasn’t nearly as good as the year before that, 2009. But thankfully this 2011 batch is much better than 2010 in my opinion and is as good as I remember 2009 being. As the bottle notes: “… each batch of Cuvee will vary slightly between bottlings” and there are a ton of things that can contribute to the flavors between years.

I was a little worried when I opened the bottle and poured and there was almost no sign of carbonation, but thankfully there was just a bit of bubbles hiding in there, what seemed like the perfect amount.

Cuvee de Tomme is pretty sour, it smells of juicy sour cherries and tastes the same upon first sip. There’s plenty of woody oak flavor in there as well. I’m not much of a wine drinker but this reminds me of red wine, maybe it’s those “supple tannins” the label refers to.

At 11% ABV Cuvee de Tomme is very much a sipper and could take a good hour or two to finish, which isn’t a bad thing as the flavors really open up as it warms up. Don’t drink this one cold.

If you like sour beers I highly recommend Cuvee de Tomme. $17 for 375ml is pricey, it’s not an everyday beer, but worth it when you find the right time to open it. If you’re not much into sour beers, or don’t have much experience with them, this might not be the best to start with. Though picking up a bottle now while you can still find it on store shelves and saving it for a while isn’t a bad idea.

San Diego Brewed: Alpine Pure Hoppiness

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Pure Hoppiness

San Diego Brewed is sponsored by Bottlecraft.

Bottlecraft is a retail shop and tasting room in Little Italy showcasing local, domestic and international craft beers. They offer hundreds of beers for your enjoyment in their onsite tasting room or to-go, as well as daily beer flights, events, glassware, merchandise, and gifts. Open Noon-10pm seven days a week. 2161 India Street, San Diego, CA 92101.

If you read this this blog regularly you may have noticed I haven’t been posting much. After the holidays things got extremely busy at the day job. While working ten, twelve and even sixteen hour days there wasn’t much time to focus on beer. Lucky for me things seem to be slowing down now.

But it was last week, after one of those ten hour days that I decided I needed a beer. I stopped into Bottlecraft after work looking with nothing specific in mind but had a few ideas about what I was looking for: hops, a reasonable price, and something I hadn’t had in a while. Without knowing it before hand, Alpine Beer Co.’s Pure Hoppiness was exactly what I was looking for at $8 for a 22oz bomber.

I’m a big fan of Alpine’s beers, especially their IPAs, but for some reason I haven’t had Pure Hoppiness in awhile (I tend to find myself drinking the lower ABV beers, Hoppy Birthday and New Millennium, or the extreme triple IPA Exponential Hoppiness when I’m drinking Alpine).

All sorts of hop aromas fill the air as soon as you start pouring: citrus, pine and that hop smell that’s often described as “tropical fruit” that I can never quite put my finger on which fruit that might be (mango if I had to guess).

For a big hoppy beer Pure Hoppiness is less bitter than one might expect, but with plenty of great hop flavor, pine and citrus standing out to me the most. There’s a tiny bit of sweetness, very light tasting, almost like honey.

San Diego has plenty of choices for hop heads, and Pure Hoppiness stands out among the best. Alpine’s beers have always been pretty easy to get at the brewery and it seems to me like there’s been a bit of an uptick in distribution over the last year or two. Alpine is planning a pretty big expansion, so we may start seeing more of their beer out and about when that happens.

San Diego Brewed: Green Flash Rayon Vert

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Rayon Vert, Treasure Chest

San Diego Brewed is sponsored by Bottlecraft.

Bottlecraft is a retail shop and tasting room in Little Italy showcasing local, domestic and international craft beers. They offer hundreds of beers for your enjoyment in their onsite tasting room or to-go, as well as daily beer flights, events, glassware, merchandise, and gifts. Open Noon-10pm seven days a week. 2161 India Street, San Diego, CA 92101.

I picked up this bottle of Rayon Vert, a recently (re-) released Belgian-Style Pale Ale from Green Flash with low expectations. Green Flash released a small amount of a beer called Treasure Chest in June of this year, which was a test run of sorts for Rayon Vert, Brewmaster Chuck Silva told me there were some minor recipe changes but they’re pretty similar.

Unfortunately I didn’t like Treasure Chest too much. Everytime I opened a bottle I smelled and tasted band-aids. This was most likely a result of the Brettanomyces used to bottle condition the beer. After pouring carefully into a glass (while being careful not to disturb the yeast at the bottom of the bottle) I took a whiff and was immediately reminded of plastic-smelling band-aids.

Upon first cautious sip however I didn’t taste much of the sort, instead I was greeted by fruity (pineapple?) like hops, a toast-like malt character, and a nice dry finish. Rayon Vert is bottle conditioned with Brett, so it will change over time, it’s hard to say if the band-aid like flavor will emerge (though with Treasure Chest it was there even when the beer was fresh). As Green Flash noted in a press release announcing the beer last month,

Because it is bottle conditioned, the beer will continue to change with age and there is no way to foresee what it will taste like after years in the bottle. Silva predicts that the results from this ageing process will be akin to Champagne.  He is convinced that Rayon Vert left to rest in the proper conditions will only improve over time.

Rayon Vert is a solid beer when fresh, hopefully it ages gracefully.

San Diego Brewed: The Alchemist / Ninkasi / Stone More Brown Than Black IPA

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brown ipa, The Alchemist / Ninkasi / Stone More Brown Than Black IPA

San Diego Brewed is sponsored by Bottlecraft.

Bottlecraft is a retail shop and tasting room in Little Italy showcasing local, domestic and international craft beers. They offer hundreds of beers for your enjoyment in their onsite tasting room or to-go, as well as daily beer flights, events, glassware, merchandise, and gifts. Open Noon-10pm seven days a week. 2161 India Street, San Diego, CA 92101.

The Alchemist / Ninkasi / Stone More Brown Than Black IPA is Stone Brewing Co.’s latest collaboration, and to me at least, it sort of flew under the radar until recently. I had heard about it a few months ago, then forgot all about it until a promotional sample from Stone showed up late last week.

Not knowing much about it until recently I had no idea that proceeds from sales will go to the Waterbury Good Neighbor Fund, a non-profit aiding families affected by Hurricane Irene. Hurricane Irene you might remember did massive destruction in Vermont (and other parts of the East Coast). The Alchemist brewery, which I wasn’t too familiar with until the hurricane is based in Vermont.

Looking over the ingredient list one thing stood out: “Super Galena hop extract for bittering.” Many craft brewers are experimenting with hop extract (and others have been using it for some time now, I believe Pliny the Elder uses some hop extract). I couldn’t remember hearing about Stone using hop extract before so I asked and Brewmaster Mitch Steele confirmed this was their first time. I’ll let Mitch explain:

The Alchemist / Ninkasi / Stone More Brown Than Black IPA is indeed our first release using hop extract. We’ve experimented with extract before, but have never been compelled to use it on any sort of regular basis. John Kimmich from The Alchemist actually suggested it, since he uses it in some of his beers. The fact is, a lot of the best Double IPAs are brewed with hop extract, which allows for what some feel is a cleaner bitterness. The lack of hop leaf material means that you can get more wort out of the brewhouse too, since less trub is formed. It is a little difficult to work with and messy though, which is one reason we don’t use it more, but it was fun to experiment with it in this beer! I think it turned out great.”

 

Black IPAs aren’t my favorite style, but I’m starting to get used to them. No longer do I get startled by a deliciously hoppy smelling black beer. The same can’t be said about brown beers. Pouring The Alchemist / Ninkasi / Stone More Brown Than Black IPA it looked like any other brown ale. But upon first whiff it was obvious this was no regular brown ale. Maybe it was the huge disconnect between what I expected based on the color and what my senses detected, but this was one of the best smelling beers I’ve come across. Huge piney hops. When people call a beer “dank” this is what they mean.

The taste is mostly hops as well, just like the smell lets on, huge piney hops, some citrusy orange/grapefruit hops. The hops really shine here, there isn’t a ton of malt, though a bit of roasted malt and maybe a hint of chocolate malt come through, the roast is far more subdued than many Black IPAs.

I’ll admit, I hope the “Brown IPA style” doesn’t catch on, but this one is another solid collaboration from Stone. I’ll certainly be picking up a few more bottles of this before it’s hoppy time runs out.