San Diego Beer News Roundup

Tags

Chez Monieux, churchill's renaissance, Exponential Hoppiness, Neighborhood bottle shop

I’ve been a bad blogger lately, with a ton going on at work and home I haven’t been blogging much. Things might be a little slow for a while longer, but here’s a quick roundup with some links to keep you up to date.

According to Amy T. Granite, the CCDC has approved Neighborhood for an off-site consumption permit. They still need to get a license (or a change to their current license depending on how they will be operating) but it looks like they’re one step closer to opening a spot to sell bottles to go near 8th and G downtown. Here’s a post with a bit of back story on their proposed bottle shop/tasting room. Check out the comments to see what folks are saying about it.

Live from the CCDC public hearing: @NeighborhoodSD has been approved a permit for off-site consumption. #bottleshop

— Amy T. Granite(@saysgranite) March 1, 2012

This Saturday is Churchill’s Renaissance at Churchill’s Pub and Grille in San Marcos. The tap list looks amazing (dare I say Pliny the Younger is the most pedestrian beer on the list?). They’ll also have a limited amount of bottles of Port/Lost Abbey brewed Churchill’s Finest Hour available for sale to go, if last year was any indication it’s a good idea to get there early if you’re looking to score a bottle.

Tomorrow (Saturday) is also the second Turista Libre TJ Craft Beer Tour, the last one was a ton of fun, it’s great to see ambitious homebrewers turning out good beer south of the border.

Pat Mcilhenney at Alpine Beer Co. sent out a newsletter earlier in the week in which he announced a few changes to the ways their beers get released. First off he says they won’t be giving much notice when a new beer is coming out, maybe they’ll announce it the day before it goes on sale, maybe once it’s already on sale, or (Mcilhenney  doesn’t explicitly say this) but maybe they won’t announce beer releases at all. Much of his email is about rewarding local and loyal customers, not out-of-towners and those looking to resell Alpine’s beers and make a quick buck. Which brings up the part that got everybody talking (just check out the comments at Beerpulse):

You have seen your very last growler of “Exponential Hoppiness” ever to be dispensed. [The link included no longer show’s the auction which was ended soon after the email went out, here’s a link to the seller’s Ebay page]

Since I previously stated if I ever saw a growler of “Exponential Hoppiness” for sale on ebay there would never be another growler sold again. Don’t blame me, but you can see who to blame on the above link. As for bottles of “Expo” on ebay, I’m seriously considering never bottling it again. This is not just a personal issue, it’s illegal.

Mike Shess at West Coaster and Peter Rowe at Brewery Rowe both followed up with Mcilhenney, and it sounds like he may change his mind somewhere down the line, but I wouldn’t expect to see Alpine filling growlers of Expo during the next release.

And not to be forgotten in the hoopla, Alpine released bottles of the always delicious Chez Monieux Kriek this week. No word on how fast it’s selling (or if it’s sold out already) but I’d hurry up there if you want some.

Speaking of West Coaster, the March issue is out now, and if you didn’t get a chance to pick up the February issue, my column about “imitation” craft beer was posted to the web a few days ago.

Beer Release News from Alpine Beer Co.

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).