Sunday, April 15, 2018
Cheers to 3 Beers That Take It Easy and Create Something Unique
At the media breakfast the morning after the first session of the 2017 Great American Beer Festival, no one wanted something heavy or complex. But when Samuel Adams poured its lager/ale hybrid, Sam '76, no one seemed prepared to enjoy the beer as much as they did.
After some 60 unsatisfying test batches, Jim Koch and crew had come up with a beer that was both light on the palate and flowing with citrus and melon fruit, thanks to its combination of Cascade, Citra, Mosaic and Simcoe hops. And it pulled off the rare track of being fully imbued with flavor and yet airy - a combination that Koch aptly described as "crushable craft beer."
But while Sam '76 (the lighter beer in the glass next to Rebel IPA above), which went nationwide in early 2018, felt revelatory at that moment, it's now one in a rising number of beers that manage to bet big on taste and aroma while going remarkably easy on the palate. While some are new, others seem to be grabbing new notice as something of a mid-point between the truly lighter craft lagers that are making a comeback and the more intricate offerings that still tempt our taste buds even at times we want something a bit more relatable.
And, like Sam '76, some of the other notable creations that fit this description are hybrids of other styles that work better as a combination than they likely would on their own.
Take, for example, Denver Beer's Japance Off Saison, its newest canned beer offering that was released early this year. It puts together two fermentation characteristics that a lot of craft beer doesn't use on its own - sake yeast and French ale yeast - and adds to the uniqueness with the European-grown Mistral hop that is simultaneously aromatic and light.
The result is a saison without the challenging earthy spice that others of the style offer but with an exceedingly clean and smooth finish that highlights both mildly fruity esters and a late-breaking hint of bitterness. There are few saisons on the market built for both this level of all-day drinking - it comes in at a reasonable 5.7 percent alcohol by volume - and this level of satisfaction.
New Image Brewing's Olde Town Regular has been around for about two years now, but it too is worth a notice in the world of crushable hybrids. Brewed like a helles and fermented like a kolsch, it pours a very cloudy golden with a thick head, leaving you to wonder what the Arvada brewers might have been seeking when they designed it.
The answer is in the flavor - a touch of clove on the nose, combined with a malty, semisweet mouthfeel and just a bite of hop presence on the end, leaving you with the impression you were drinking a meaty hefeweizen or a highly approachable Belgian table beer. It's unique, it's easy and yet it keeps calling you to pick out which flavor of the bunch is rising to the surface, giving you complexity without weight.
All three are worth keeping in mind especially as the weather warms. But all are good any time of year, creating their own new "crushable" category in a sector that can benefit from it.
At the media breakfast the morning after the first session of the 2017 Great American Beer Festival, no one wanted something heavy or complex. But when Samuel Adams poured its lager/ale hybrid, Sam '76, no one seemed prepared to enjoy the beer as much as they did.
After some 60 unsatisfying test batches, Jim Koch and crew had come up with a beer that was both light on the palate and flowing with citrus and melon fruit, thanks to its combination of Cascade, Citra, Mosaic and Simcoe hops. And it pulled off the rare track of being fully imbued with flavor and yet airy - a combination that Koch aptly described as "crushable craft beer."
But while Sam '76 (the lighter beer in the glass next to Rebel IPA above), which went nationwide in early 2018, felt revelatory at that moment, it's now one in a rising number of beers that manage to bet big on taste and aroma while going remarkably easy on the palate. While some are new, others seem to be grabbing new notice as something of a mid-point between the truly lighter craft lagers that are making a comeback and the more intricate offerings that still tempt our taste buds even at times we want something a bit more relatable.
And, like Sam '76, some of the other notable creations that fit this description are hybrids of other styles that work better as a combination than they likely would on their own.
Take, for example, Denver Beer's Japance Off Saison, its newest canned beer offering that was released early this year. It puts together two fermentation characteristics that a lot of craft beer doesn't use on its own - sake yeast and French ale yeast - and adds to the uniqueness with the European-grown Mistral hop that is simultaneously aromatic and light.
The result is a saison without the challenging earthy spice that others of the style offer but with an exceedingly clean and smooth finish that highlights both mildly fruity esters and a late-breaking hint of bitterness. There are few saisons on the market built for both this level of all-day drinking - it comes in at a reasonable 5.7 percent alcohol by volume - and this level of satisfaction.
The answer is in the flavor - a touch of clove on the nose, combined with a malty, semisweet mouthfeel and just a bite of hop presence on the end, leaving you with the impression you were drinking a meaty hefeweizen or a highly approachable Belgian table beer. It's unique, it's easy and yet it keeps calling you to pick out which flavor of the bunch is rising to the surface, giving you complexity without weight.
All three are worth keeping in mind especially as the weather warms. But all are good any time of year, creating their own new "crushable" category in a sector that can benefit from it.
Labels: ale/lager hybrids, Denver Beer Co, Great American Beer Festival, Jim Koch, New Image Brewing, Sam Adams
