We have a bunch of new stuff in this week. For starters, we have Ithaca’s Oaked Nut Brown on draft. This beer was born over several experimental cask nights at Pixel and tuned to just the right level of toastiness. While our weekly cask ale event has been put on hiatus while Ithaca Beer focuses on growth, we will have a special cask event on December 4th celebrating their 10th anniversary. More on this later… Save this date!
Also new on draft is the St. Bernardus Grottenbier. Created by Pierre Celis, the milkman turned master brewer who founded the Hoegaarden Brewery and brought wheat beers back from the dead in the 60s, this beer is a nice dark brown Belgian ale that’s perfect for the winter ahead. Yum! If the darker style isn’t your thing but you still want something to challenge Ithaca’s weather, we have the Avery Salvation. This is a kickin 9% ABV pale Belgian style ale from the boys in Boulder, CO. This one is big but smooth. Tasty.
We have new beer, eh? We’d like to welcome two new breweries to Ithaca and our bellies. A favorite of Pennsylvanians for years, Troegs is starting to trickle in. At the moment, we have their HopBack Amber. This is nice, malty and smooth with complimentary but not overwhelming hops. Quaffable. Also just in from Battle Creek, Michigan are two new brews from Arcadia Brewing. The Cocoa Loco Triple Chocolate Stout is very drinkable even at 7% ABV. It’s slightly nutty and very chocolate. Go crazy? Don’t mind if I do! (And we kinda did during the release event.) The HopMouth Double IPA has a great balance between its 8.1% ABV and 76 IBUs of hops. Unlike the San Diego style (Damn you Green Flash Le Freak), this beer has a familiar east coast balance that you can drink all day. Well, you’ll pass out before your palate will anyhow. Check these beers out and welcome them to the neighborhood.
We have a special treat from Ithaca Beer this Thursday at 7PM: cask conditioned and wet hopped Outdoor Harvest Ale. This limited and draft only brew is packed with New York State Cascade hops from the Pederson Farms in Seneca Castle. The hops are used as is and without kiln drying; imparting a rich floral aroma without the usual bitterness of a highly hopped IPA. Combine this with a tasty malt base and you have a very drinkable beer. Drinkable here while the cask lasts, from growlers filled at the brewery and on draft at Pixel soon.
If you haven’t already heard, the second annual Ithaca Brew Fest is this Saturday at Stewart Park. You should definitely check it out. However, if you want to make a full weekend of it, you should be at Pixel this Friday at 7PM for a Jim Beam bourbon and bourbon cocktail tasting. This means free cocktails, snacks and a slightly academic tasting of Jim Beam, Maker’s Mark, Basil Hayden’s and Knob Creek. They’re also bringing white dog, which is straight out of distillation, uncut and with no barrel aging. White dog is a Team Pixel favorite. Free whiskey! Free whiskey!
So we just stopped by to pick up a Flower Power cask for tonight and found out Ithaca Beer has another future award winner again with their new release Brute. A “Golden Sour Ale,” it was aged for 9 months and slowly fermented with “wild” brettanomyces yeast. The result is akin to champagne with a nice balance of fruity sour and honey sweetness. The bad news is that we can’t get any at Pixel yet. The good news is that they’ll have it for sale at the brewery on Friday so drive on down to grab some for yourself before the limited 250 case release is gone. Ithaca Beer’s Executive Brewer Jeff O’Neil writes up this new brew on his blog here. We’ll let you know as soon as we get our paws on this unique and tasty release. It is awesome work.
We’re going a little saison crazy, but the weather calls for it. Designed to be a refreshing beverage for harvest workers, it’s a great summer alternative to usual summer wheat beers. Saisons on tap at the moment are the Smuttynose Farmhouse Ale, Slyfox Saison VOS and the tasty splurge Saison Dupont. There’s no absolute style of saison. These are all different takes on the genre and great for comparison. Check ‘em out.
In addition to the weekly cask night, representatives of Ithaca Beer will be at Pixel from 8-11PM this Friday with free t-shirts and whatnot. Come get them before some Summer Session pre-frosh steals them all.
While their 60 and 90 Minute IPAs have been hugely popular at Pixel and apparently everywhere else, Dogfish Head manages to keep putting out some interesting and unconventional brews. Hopefully you’ve tried the Festina Peche we highlighted last week, but in case you haven’t, we’ve stocked up to keep it flowing though the Summer. The Peche is great, but why have only one geeky beer when you can have four? In limited quantity on draft and in big bottles, we also have their Black & Blue. Described as a Belgian-style strong ale brewed with blackberries and blueberries, it is smooth and extremely sneaky at 10%abv. In the other corner is one of my favorites: the Red & White. Pinot Noir juice is added to the fermentation of this creamy Belgian-style wit and then a portion is aged in Oregon Pinot Noir barrels. So good. The fourth offering is the academic Chateau Jiahu. This is a complex recreation of a 9000 year old beer style made in Henan province in Northern China. Rice flakes, wildflower honey, Muscat grapes, barley malt, hawthorn fruit and Chrysanthemum flowers are brewed up to make an unmistakably unique beer.
So US craft beer is all about the hops eh? Well, while I’m sure it will be for some time to come, many of us have become a bit bored with one hop bomb after another. So what’s next? We’ve seen some great US made Belgian triples and Saisons. Some with an intentional bit of Brettanomyces induced funk. But why stop there? We’re surrounded by all kinds of microflora just waiting to turn sugars into alcohol and aromatic esters. Enter sour beer. On one extreme, a Geuze (Cantillon for example) can be so acidic and so funky that it’s almost unpalatable. On the other extreme, you have Fruit Lambics such as Lindemans Framboise that’ll put you in a diabetic coma. So, somewhere in the middle is the Berliner Weisse, which draws its sourness from fermentation with lactic acid bacteria. While tart, it is not a palate stripping Geuze and is typically served with a bit of fruit syrup to balance it out. On draft at the moment we have Dogfish Head’s Festina Peche. The peach is not overwhelming and adds just enough flavor and sweetness to make this beer very refreshing. We’re also popping a bottle of a 2003 Festina Lente tonight. It promises to be very very sour.
