The second leg of my beer journey took me to the West Coast, visiting San Diego, Los Angeles, and the San Francisco area (Seattle and Portland had to be saved for a separate trip). But as far as California is concerned, the craft beer culture is thriving and the level of innovation and experimentation is high. It seems to be the trend in the West; in a culture of hop-heads and extremists, crazy big beers reign the tap lists.
Overview: Sam Adams Utopias might be one of the most hyped products in the craft beer industry. Released on odd years since 2001 as a follow up to Sam Adams Millennium, this beer holds the title of one of the strongest naturally brewed beer in the world, coming in at about 27% ABV. This beer uses yeasts typical for champagne and wine, maple syrup, and for this year’s batch, the brew was aged in a variety of sherry and port casks. The bottle is handcrafted out of ceramic and individually numbered. You also get a redeem code for a free (plus shipping and handling) handmade glassware especially made for this beer. Only 53 barrels were used for this year’s batch, and many stores are already out of their supply, even though there was no major announcement when it became available. Did I mention that it’ll cost you $150, or often more?
About the beer:
Regular readers will know that I take a special interest in the tradition of using flowers, spices, and unusual ingredients in beer. Before the Reinheitsgebot and other regional regulations on beer production, this practice was fairly common. Brewers used a wide variety of ingredients as flavoring, bittering, and even fermentable agents – some that we might find unusual, even distasteful today.
As a Bostonian, I’ve grown accustomed to having a stellar craft beer selection and culture readily available. So I was excited to see what the first leg of my trip, in which I visited New Hampshire, Vermont, New York, North Carolina, Maryland, and Delaware, (spanning a decent portion of the Atlantic) would have in store. All the breweries I visited are producing an interesting and well-executed selection of beers to their local communities and beyond. What fascinated me the most was the realization that most breweries on this side of the country share a couple of common threads:
About the beer:
Craft beer is all about options. With the rise in popularity of higher alcohol craft beers some are turning their interests towards other options in the form of an up and coming category in the craft beer community – session beer. Awareness over the session style of brewing has risen over the last two years with many American breweries creating some tremendous crafted ales, all of which carrying significantly lower ABVs than the stereotypical craft ale.
The term “session” finds it’s origins in the UK and refers to the allowable drinking periods that were imposed on production workers during World War I. The licensed sessions were 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. and 7 to 11 p.m. Workers would find a beer that they could adequately quench their thirst with during these restrictive “sessions” that were imposed by the government without getting legally drunk.
With this groundswell of awareness and rich history to live up to, enter Notch Session Ale, an independently brewed ale which is the brain child of Notch brewer and founder Chris Lohring. In collaboration with his friends at Ipswich Ale Brewery of Ipswich, MA, Chris is brewing low-gravity American style session beers that pack immense amounts of robustness and flavor without heavy alcohol content.
As I began to explore the tremendous world of craft beer a couple of years ago, one thing became abundantly clear: every beer is like a person, possessing individual personalities, stories, and characteristics. The basic components are the same, but the variables that are present give craft beer immense potential to create insanely interesting, complex and delicious beers. I mean really, what could be more exciting?
About The Beer: White Birch Brewing based out of Hooksett, NH is a small batch brewery concentrating on small batch beer. Their tripel is easily one of my favorites in the market. Tripels are a curious beer, high abv (White Birch’s clocks in at around 9.5%) without a huge alcohol bite it lends to aging nicely as well.
