Northern California Rare Beer Roundup – October 2009
The weather’s cooling down, the leaves are dropping, and I’m in desperate need of some of those fancy little white pumpkins. We’ve been California residents for 11 days now… This is your October 2009 NorCal Rare Beer Roundup.
The highest-rated beer currently available from Drakes is their imperial IPA with a name that, quite simply, is used too infrequently in everyday conversation. Your goal for the rest of October is to use “denogginizer” as both a slang substitute for someone badass (i.e. “Vin Diesel is quite the denogginizer, don’t you think?…”) and a term of sexual endearment. This juicy double IPA was spotted at GABF and as one of the guest taps at Pacific Coast Brewing Company in Oakland.
In a typical show of hubris for a brewery in the middle of nowhere, FiftyFifty put their multiple-GABF-medal-winning Imperial Stout on tap one week after I left the area. The fact that Todd Ashman, FiftyFifty’s brewmaster of Flossmoor Station fame, happened to leave for a trip to Germany around the same time is of little consolation. The Imperial Stout is the base beer for FiftyFifty’s highly regarded barrel-aged Imperial Eclipse Stout and will, beer gods willing, last until Friday.
The preponderance of Moonlight’s impressive array of session beers (Reality Czeck, Death and Taxes, Lunatic Lager, etc.) in Northern California is another indication that, as many have suspected, NorCal is highly regarded by certain deities. Brian Hunt’s earlier ventures into sour ales – 20 to Life and 60 to Life – have seen mixed reviews online, and since I haven’t tried these rarities myself (yet), this makes it difficult to directly call into question certain people’s sanity. I will simply say that the 40 to Life, a mystery in its origins and its availability (Eric at TAPS Petaluma was kind enough to put it on tap for us), is one of the finest sour ales in existence, a heavily aceto-based session sour with a toasty finish.
Firestone Walker’s latest creation under the Nectar Ales label (of all things) is a barrel-aged imperial stout seeing rave initial reviews. That’s right: that Humboldt-originated offshoot that brought you those beautifully rendered Red Nectar and Hemp Ale session beers – widely available throughout Northern CA, another solid indication of divine regard – is doing a limited-release chubby beer for us beer geeks. 500 cases, a handful of kegs. Start by checking your local BevMo.
Who? Huh? What? Turn your hearing aid up, grandpa, because this new brewery is starting things off with a minimally hopped amber ale!… No, wait. What I meant to say was, a 10% wine barrel-aged quadruple with sour cherries. The norm now, no? No. The loss of Sacramento Brewing is heartbreaking for anyone in the area, but Peter Hoey’s new venture is the closest thing to a silver lining. Look for this beer and their upcoming saison at fine places in Sacramento and Santa Cruz.
Disclosure: Steve at Valley Brew is a friend, one of the most innovative brewers in this country or any other, and I would happily set up a tent and live out my days amongst his fermentation tanks. I just might do that… Valley Brew’s standard line – including the IPA, London Tavern, even the ephemeral Uberhoppy Imperial IPA – are finally being bottled and distributed throughout NorCal, and beyond. Search them out (City Beer in downtown SF is a reliable place to start) and then keep looking for those few kegs that escaped of their Uber Abbey, which is the Uber fermented with Belgian Ale yeast. I’ll likely be sitting right next to you.
NEXT MONTH: Firestone Walker 13, Russian River Procrastination, and ???
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[...] with sour cherries called Rorie’s Ale Batch 001 (named after Peter’s daughter), in a previous article. I was one of the first people to review it on Ratebeer, having managed down to track down the last [...]
[...] someone with a mild fixation on rare beers (see here and here for examples) that even eight months in Nicaragua couldn’t properly efface, it’s still [...]