Beers

North Coast Old Rasputin XI Available Friday, November 28th Only At the Brewery in Fort Bragg, California.

North Coast Brewing has been making exceptional beers for over 20 years now. The Brew Guide has called them, “very big, very complex and downright kick-ass.” And, one of the biggest and most kick-ass has been their Old Rasputin Russian Imperial Stout. With a string of 12 Gold Medals dating back to 1996, Old Rasputin has developed a cult following. So would it be possible to improve upon that huge, robust coffee and chocolate flavor profile?

Check it out! On Wednesday, November 26, North Coast will bottle the long-awaited Old Rasputin XI to celebrate the eleventh anniversary of the first bottling of Old Rasputin. This special batch of Old Rasputin has been aging for a year in oak bourbon barrels, and it is truly amazing — even more depth and complexity than we had hoped for. Old Rasputin XI will be available only at the Brewery retail store in Fort Bragg beginning on Friday, November 28 — the day after Thanksgiving. It will be packaged in a 500 ml bottle with commemorative label and a cork and cage finish at $12.95 per bottle. Limit is one case per customer. Some for now, some for cellaring. Sorry, they are unable to ship beer to consumers.

Pike Entire is a blend of three beers: Pike’s XXXXX Extra Stout, (7% abv); the same beer aged for more than half a year in oak Bourbon barrels; and an Imperial Stout (12% abv). The Entire blend contains 42.7% barrel aged beer and finishes at 9.5% alcohol by volume. The taste is complex with velvety malt tones, a coffee aroma, and a palate and finish of bitter chocolate. The biscuity character of pale and crystal malts, along with roasted barley, is balanced by a generous amount of Yakima Valley Willamette, Goldings and Columbus hops in the boil; finished with even more Willamette and Goldings. Adding complexity are the underlying wood tones perfumed by the caramel sweetness of wood-aged Kentucky Bourbon.

In order to brew a beer in keeping with the original style but still distinctly American, Pike acquired oak Bourbon barrels last year and filled them with Pike XXXXX Extra Stout in April 2008 to be blended back. Pike Head Brewer, Drew Cluley, describes the beer as “complex and chocolaty with a great vanilla wood overtone.”

On Monday, November 24, 2008, Pike Entire, in wax-dipped 22 oz. bottles, will be released. It will have very limited availabilty at the Pike Pub and in select bottle shops, primarily in the Seattle area. A few quarter-barrels will be released for sale on draft. The Pike Pub will tap its one and only quarter-barrel of Pike Entire on Friday, November 28.

Iron Hill Brewery & Restaurant, the popular food and drink destination with seven area locations, has announced the release of four lambic-style beers in bottles: Kreik de Hill, Lambic de Hill, Framboise de Hill, and Cassis de Hill. Iron Hill will host two release parties, at the Wilmington and Media locations, to give beer enthusiasts an opportunity to sample the different styles, speak with the brewers who created them and purchase the award-winning beers.

“It takes 3 to 4 years to make one batch of lambic beer. In the past, we’ve only offered these beers at special events,” says Director of Brewing Operations Mark Edelson, “We are excited to now be able to make them available to everyone who appreciates these great beers.”

Iron Hill’s four lambic-style beers are their most awarded varieties. The Lambic has won two gold medals in 2008 and 2003 from the Great American Beer Festival (GABF), the Kreik one gold in 2005 and one bronze in 2007, the Cassis one bronze in 2008 and the Framboise a bronze in 2004 from the World Beer Cup (WBC).

Iron Hill Lambic is a traditional Belgian-style lambic beer made with wild yeast and bacteria and aged in oak barrels for at least two years. It is golden-yellow in color and unfiltered, with a complex aroma of bananas, oak and hay and a nutty flavor that gives way to intense sour notes.

Cassis is a lambic-style beer that is aged in oak barrels with black currants, which lend the beer a violet color and berry aroma.

Framboise ages in oak barrels with fresh raspberries; it is ruby red in color and balanced between lambic sourness and sweet raspberry notes.

Kreik is aged in oak barrels with sour cherries, light red in color and also delicately balanced between sour and fruity-sweet.

Stone Brewing has announced the return of one of their most beloved and most nobly crafted beers, Sawyer’s Triple, available beginning tomorrow, November 11. As you may recall, they originally brewed this Belgian-style ale back in 2003 to raise both awareness and funds for the fight against ALD (Adrenoleukodystrophy). The beer itself is named in honor and remembrance of Sawyer Sherwood, son of Stone team member Bill Sherwood. For more information about this beer and the cause it supports, check out Stone’s new blog.

If you want to buy some Sawyer’s Triple, here’s what you need to know:

• Bottles of Sawyer’s Triple will be available for sale at the Stone Company Store starting Tuesday, November 11th. The 22 oz bottles will sell for $6 each (plus tax and CRV).
• Sawyer’s Triple will be available on draft as well at the Stone World Bistro & Gardens for $6 a pint.
• As before, absolutely 100% of the proceeds will go to charity; specifically, to Fight ALD!, the research and education foundation started by Janis Sherwood.
• Although the sale of Stone Special Release beers has often been limited to 2 or 3 bottles per person, there will be no such limit for Sawyer’s Triple. Please note, however, no “case discount” will be in effect in order to provide Fight ALD with as much funding as possible.
• Currently, Sawyer’s Triple is available for sale exclusively here at Stone.

Shipyard Brewing announced today the launch of Pugsley’s Signature Series line, and the first two products in the line, a Barley Wine Style Ale and an Imperial Porter. The new beers will be available in November, in 22 oz. bottles and on draft.

Pugsley’s Signature Series is named after Shipyard’s master brewer, Alan Pugsley. Pugsley is from Hampshire, England where he worked with Peter Austin at the Ringwood Brewery, before moving to the U.S. in 1986.

Barley Wine Style Ale is a big beer made with six different malts (Pale Ale, Crystal, Caramunich, Wheat, Chocolate and Roasted Barley) and balanced with a very full hop charge of Summit, Challenger and Fuggles hops. It is a deep reddish brown color with a complex fruity nose, a very full body, and an interesting balance between grains and hops which ends with a pleasing dry taste. To fully enjoy all the flavors, this ale is best drunk at 55 degrees Fahrenheit. 8.5% alcohol by volume.

Imperial Porter is a full bodied, very dark, malty beer with a good roasted character coming from the Crystal, Chocolate and Black Patent Malts used in the mash. Warrior, English Fuggles, and East Kent Goldings Hops balance the malts with a good hop bite. The beer has an OG of 1.070, rounding out after fermentation with just a slight residual sweetness and cutting dry at the finish. 7.1% alcohol by volume.

This weekend in London, Tripel Karmeliet was named the “World’s Best Ale” at the World Beer Awards.

Tripel Karmeliet is a historical “3 grain” beer, using barley, wheat and oats, and is refermented in the bottle. The recipe originated in a Carmelite monastery in 1679. Today it is brewed according to the same recipe at the Bosteels Brewery in Belgium.

There were also three other big awards. Primator Exkluziv was named World’s Best Lager, Kaltenberg Konig Ludwig Weissbier was declared the World’s Best Wheat Beer, and our own Rogue Shakespeare Stout was named World’s Best Stout/Porter.

The rest of the awards are available at the World Beer Awards website.

Twenty years ago Charlie Otto began making beer in Wyoming’s first modern brewery, a 210 square foot cabin in Jackson Hole. Since then, Grand Teton Brewing Company has grown into its present 11,000 square foot facility in Victor, Idaho, winning dozens of major awards and bringing innovations like the reusable glass growler to the brewing world.

To commemorate that twenty-year history, Grand Teton’s brewers have chosen four of their year-round beers—three current, one historical—to strengthen and enhance. XX Bitch Creek Double ESB is the final release in our 2008 XX series.

Bitch Creek ESB was first brewed in 2003, and perfectly balances big malt sweetness and robust hop flavor for a full-bodied mahogany ale. It has quickly become our best-selling beer, as well as our most-critically acclaimed, having won medals–including two golds— at four out the past five Great American Beer Festivals.

XX Bitch Creek Double ESB is all that and more. We took the Bitch Creek recipe and doubled everything: double the malt, double the hops, twice the flavor. This is a huge beer at 7.5% alcohol by volume, which should be paired with only the most flavorful of foods. Try it with the best steaks, game meats and hearty stews, or with a nice cave-aged Gouda.

According to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, MillerCoors announced today that they will discontinue their clear malternative Zima, Arguably one of the first alcopops made in the U.S. when it debuted in 1994, Zima has managed to stay around longer than many of its competitors, including being remade with new flavors such as Zima Citrus, Zima Pineapple Citrus and Zima Tangerine.

If you’re feeling nostalgic for just one last sip of the lemony malt-based beverage, the final shipments to distributors will likely be in December, meaning Zima should still be found on store shelves through the beginning of next spring.

“This decision is necessary to reduce complexity when it comes to our brand portfolio, allowing for more focused activity at retail on consumer-preferred brands, especially Sparks,” Andy England, chief marketing officer, wrote in a memo released Monday by MillerCoors, a joint venture formed by merging Miller Brewing Co. and Coors Brewing Co.

According to BrandWeek, alcopop sales have been down lately, presumably due in part to their being targeted by neo-prohibitionist groups in many states.

Overall, the progressive adult beverage category is off 6.6%. Case sales of the Smirnoff Ice brand family are down 11%, while Mike’s Hard Lemonade brands are up 1% and Anheuser-Busch’s Bacardi Silver brands are up 10.4%.

Peak Brewing, the organic brewery in Portland, Maine, has released theior newest creation, Peak Organic Espresso Amber Ale!

The Espresso Amber Ale is brewed with Maine-roasted, organic fair trade espresso in collaboration with Coffee By Design. The beer is in partnership with Transfair, a non-profit that works to ensure that farmers and farm workers behind Fair Trade Certified goods are paid fair, above-market prices, helping to support a better life for farming families, community development and environmental stewardship. Peak Organic Espresso Amber Ale is the first Fair Trade Certified beer brewed in the United States.

The new brew is a flavorful, robust ale with toasty notes from the espresso in the front palate that delicately compliment the sweeter notes from the malts in the back palate.

Great Divide Brewing Company is releasing unique, barrel-aged versions of their Yeti Imperial Stout and Old Ruffian Barley Wine.

The Barrel Aged Old Ruffian Barley Wine was aged for 20 months in used barrels from Stranahan’s Colorado Whiskey, Colorado’s only whiskey maker. As it also does for the Yeti, the aging process mellows Old Ruffian’s edge while adding gentle notes of oak, whiskey and vanilla to the 12.7% ABV and 85 IBUs beer. (The original Old Ruffian won a Gold medal at the 2006 Great American Beer Festival and a Silver medal at the 2007 GABF.)

Barrel Aged Yeti Imperial Stout has also been aged for 20 months in Stranahan’s barrels. The rich and robustly roasted beer of 12.2% ABV and 75 International Bittering Units (IBUs) picks up flavors of oak, vanilla and whiskey through the extended aging process. These flavors add greater complexity to the already rich beer, while tempering its assertive nature.

Both of these beers are packaged in 750-ml bottles, then bottle conditioned for a natural carbonation and additional character. The two barrel-aged beers will be available in limited supplies (just 470 bottles of each beer) and will be sold only in Colorado. The suggested retail price for these beers is $25 per bottle.

“Our intent,” says Great Divide founder Brian Dunn, “was to age each beer in the barrels for 9 months. But we got busy with other projects, primarily the addition of a new bottling line, and the beers ended up aging for more than a year and half.” While the labels on the bottles state that the beers were aged 9 months in barrels, both beers were in fact aged 20 months in barrels.

“I think the beers really benefited from our procrastination,” Dunn adds. “When it comes to aging beers in whiskey barrels, I believe the longer the better. The additional time delivers a beer with more oak character than whiskey character, and that’s what we prefer.”

“These are not blended beers,” Dunn points out. “Each of these beers are uncut, 100% from the whiskey barrels.”

It’s harvest time in the Rogue Nation. The Rogue Department of Agriculture and Rogue Ales Brewery announce the release of Independence Hop Ale, the first beer brewed with hops from Rogue Farms’ hop yard in Independence, Ore., once called the “hop capital of the world.”

A limited release fresh-hop beer, Independence Hop Ale was brewed in two 50-barrel batches, following the harvest cycle of the hops. The first batch was brewed with 500 pounds of fresh, unkilned Centennial hops. The second was brewed a week later with 750 pounds of wet Cascade hops picked, stuffed into sacks, driven 77 miles to Newport and tossed in the brew kettle before they had a chance to start drying. After fermentation, the two batches were blended together. The result is a light copper-colored, unfiltered ale marrying the two distinctive hop characters of each batch.

Independence Hop Ale is brewed with 8 ingredients: Two-row, Munich, Caramel Wheat and Carafoam malts, fresh, unkilned Centennial and Cascade hops, proprietary Pacman yeast and free range coastal water.

In May of 2008, Rogue entered into a strategic alliance with heritage hop growers the Coleman family. Rogue planted 22 acres of hops and will add 20 more this fall on the former John I. Haas Alluvial Hop Farm just south of Independence. The land, at the end of Wigrich Road, is part of a historic hop farm called the Wigrich Ranch, that in the 1920s was the largest hop yard under a single trellis in the world.

Rogue Farms’ hop yard puts the brewery in the position to be able to brew beer with proprietary hops, much like wineries are able to make estate wines. That means from bine to bottle, from plant to pint, beers with Rogue Farms on the label will be 100% pure Rogue. Rogue hops will be picked, kilned and baled on site.

In 2009, Rogue will add proprietary malted barley from Rogue Farms’ newly acquired barley farm near Tygh Valley, Ore. for a beer made with all-Oregon ingredients to celebrate Oregon’s 150th birthday.

Independence Hop Ale will be available in Oregon and Washington in serigraphed 22-ounce bottles and on draft while supplies last. The Rogue Post Office has issued a commemorative stamp in honor of the hop farm and has a 24-hour webcam where Rogues can watch the Rogue hops grow.

Strap on your snow shoes and keep your eye out this winter for Rogue’s Yellow Snow IPA in a 5 Liter Can. The can uses a convenient “Pull and Turn” tapping system that makes this the perfect gift to share with friends at the mountain, the lodge, or the local motel. Yellow Snow is Rogue’s tribute to winter sports everywhere—downhill skiing, snowboarding, cross country, ice hockey, ice fishing, snowmobiling, and even curling. Yellow Snow IPA is Dedicated to Common Sense.

Yellow Snow will be available November 1 in select mountain communities across the country. In addition to the 5 Liter Can, Rogue’s Yellow Snow IPA is available in 64oz jugs, 22oz bottles, and on draft. Yellow Snow IPA is created from 6 Ingredients: Two-Row Pale, Cara Foam & Melanoiden Malts; Amarillo Hops; Free Range Coastal Waters & Top Fermenting Pacman Yeast. Pale golden in color with a hoppy fruity aroma. Big hop flavor up front complimented by medium body and hoppyness mid-pallet. It finishes with a characteristic, lingering

Full Sail Brewing announces the release of Lupulin Fresh Hop Ale as part of their Brewmaster Reserve series. Brewing a fresh hop ale to celebrate the hop harvest is an annual tradition at Full Sail. Every year, the Full Sail brewers travel to area hop fields and gather all the fresh hops they can carry to brew this special beer. This year’s Lupulin Fresh Hop Ale is brewed with three varieties of fresh hops straight from the harvest: Mt Rainier, Cascade and Nugget. According to Full Sail Brewmaster, John Harris, “Lupulin Fresh Hop Ale is a veritable hop lover’s delight. The beer isall about hops. It’s wet hopped, kettle hopped, hop back hopped, wet hopped in the fermenter, and dry hopped in the fermenter with 135 pounds of hops per 24 barrel batch. That’s 5.62 pounds of hops per barrel! Expect a bold hop aroma of citrus and spice and a nice caramel flavor with a pronounced citrus character.” Due to the limited availability of fresh hops, Lupulin is brewed in small batches, so Harris suggests that you enjoy this once a year tradition while you can. Harris goes on to explain that, “This beer is rightfully named Lupulin, as the lupulin glands are the sticky resins inside the hops that carry the bitterness and essential oils of the hops. They are what gives beer its wonderful flavor and aroma.” (5.8 abv, 70 IBUs).

Lupulin was awarded the coveted 2007 “Satori Award” by beer aficionado/blogger Jeff Alworth at his Beervana blog. Alworth writes, “In Zen Buddhism, satori is the moment of sudden enlightenment when the mind realizes its own true nature. The Satori award, honors the beer that in a single instant allows the drinker to realize the true nature of beer.” Full Sail invites you to experience the nature of this year’s Lupulin when the brewery will tap the new batch at their Tasting Room and Pub in Hood River, and at their Riverplace Brewery in Portland, on Wednesday, September 10th at 5:00PM. For more information contact the Full Sail Tasting Room and Pub at 541-386-2247 or Full Sail at Riverplace at 503-222-5343.

Full Sail’s Lupulin Fresh Hop Ale will be available in limited quantities mid September to November on draught in pubs throughout the Pacific Northwest and at Full Sail’s Tasting Room and Pub in Hood River and at their Riverplace brewery in Portland, Oregon. It will also be available at various fresh hop beer festivals throughout the northwest and at a special Oregon Brewer’s Guild fresh hop beer tasting at the Great American Beer Festival, in Denver, Colorado this October.