Here are my top picks for best IPAs brewed right here in Houston and perfect to celebrate with on #NationalIPADay!

Heavy Hands Double IPA – Spindletap Brewery

If you read my Valentines letter to this beer, you know my mad obsession. This beer pours milky bright yellow with vibrant hops qualities present on all corners. This IPA has a strong citrus kick making it the true definition of Texas JUICE! At 8%, its medium body and soft mouthfeel continues to delight my hop head senses with each sip. Cans are generally available in the taproom and local distro markets like HEB. Load up on the case special at the brewery, because you won’t want this hoppy adventure to end. Cheers to the heavy weight champ of Houston hazy beers!

Mini Boss IPA – Eureka Heights Brewing Company

This double dry hopped IPA is the classic example of a tropical citrus IPA. Containing Citra and mosaic in the hop profile, this beer is one of the most balanced IPAs around. Modest amount of bitterness, aroma of bold citrus hops and drying alcohol finish makes this 6.8% IPA are perfect entry IPA for those new to the style. Coincidentally, it also makes a great shotgun beer with its approachable hoppy character. Crack open a cold one and down the hatch it goes!

Doc Hoppiday Hazy IPA – Saloon Door Brewing

This beer is my hoppy huckleberry. Coming in at 6.8%, this hazy New England style IPA from Saloon Door Brewing in Webster is an ultra smooth drinkable IPA with all the juicy characteristics hop heads crave. With all Citra hops and its bold tropical juice notes, this beer finishes dry with a slight hop bite on the end. If you are a fan of Heavy Hands, this one is definitely one to try! This brew is available to go from the taproom as well as local distribution markets including Total Wine’s all over the state of Texas.

The Haas West Coast IPA – Vallensons’ Brewing Co.

It wouldn’t be proper to include a list of awesome IPAs and leave off Valle’s Haas West Coast IPA. This resinous dank forward west coast style was named after Joe Haas, close friend of the brewery & lifetime mug club member who happens to be a huge fan of this beer and west coast IPAs. The Haas is a dedication beer to all the help and friendship over the years with the Haas family. They have assisted the brewery in many ways, including preparing the original cellar & fermentation system, making runs to Austin for brewery equipment and slinging pints behind the bar.

Weighing in a 7%, this American west coast IPA is brewed with Magnum and Centennial hops for bitterness and then triple dry hopped with Simcoe to reflect an amazing pine citrus aroma. This beer is as traditional as they come. By the way, are you free tonight? Vallensons’ is celebrating their first Thursday open to the public with the release of a new DIPA with Sabro, Cascade and Belma hops. Come check out the new taproom digs in Pearland and keep your eyes peeled for a Joe Haas sighting!

Art Car IPA – Saint Arnold Brewing Company

A classic favorite H-town treat! Art Car IPA is an American IPA featuring a blend of both new and old hop varieties from the Pacific Northwest. Visually, this beer pours golden yellow, nose full of tropical mango and apricot making it very inviting to enjoy. A generous dry hopping of Amarillo, Simcoe and Mosaic brings out the tropical mango and citrus aromatics. I highly recommend a fresh pour directly from the beer garden for the ultimate tasting experience. Best thing about this beer? It can be found nearly all around town including your local gas stations. Check the date if you want, we think its still enjoyable months in!

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The post Top 5 Houston area IPAs to drink on #IPADay appeared first on Houston Beer Guide.

Wholistic Hazy IPA is a Hazy IPA (obviously)  that runs 6.66% abv and features Citra and Enigma hops. It was much hazier and lighter in color than the DL I reviewed a couple months ago, with a bright white head that had great retention. As soon as I opened the can I was hit in the face with bright pineapple that only intensified as I poured it. There was also some mango and a slight grapefruit tartness to support that pineapple. 

On my first sip, I got a lot of mango with hints of strawberry all riding on a slight cracker note from the malt that was very much the supporting character to the hops. As it warmed up, the strawberry became more prominent along with a slight creamy coconut that was reminiscent of a pina colada. It did have a slight hop burn that I think will be gone by the next can I open, as it was about a day old when I reviewed it. There was also a slight bitterness that paired well with the fruity juice flavors, making me want to keep drinking. The mouthfeel was right on point, a creamy velvet that flowed over my tongue without coating. 

A new point of excitement is, unlike the DL double, these cans are dated which is a huge must for this style of beer. Overall, this is a great first new recipe from Whole Foods Brewing, making me looking forward to more from them. These are currently available at the Post Oak location and will be seen around town within the next couple weeks. 

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Parish bringing that Louisiana hazy flair.    Photo Credit: Britt Antley

In addition to Ghost, Parish has teamed up with Silver Eagle Distributors to bring to Houston a solid lineup that satisfies all spectrums of the beer drinkers’ palettes. Their most popular beer by volume is Canebrake, a self-described Louisiana Wheat Ale that uses locally grown sugarcane to lend a slight sweetness to the easy drinking wheat ale. South Coast is another easy drinker, balancing a traditional amber malt profile with noble hops to create a sessionable 5.1% backyard BBQ type of beer. Envie is Parish’s American Pale Ale that combines juice-laden tropical fruits with no harsh bitterness to yield an approachable hoppy beer that could easily convert people who claim to dislike anything with discernible hops. Things get kicked up a couple notches with Rêve, a glorious coffee stout that drinks like cold brew and crams an incredible amount of flavor into a surprisingly low 7.2% body. Parish plans to bring additional limited seasonal offerings to Houston, and we can also expect packaged retail in the spring.

The festivities kick off next Monday at Flying Saucer Downtown from 7-10 PM where Andrew Godley, Parish’s founder, will be on-site to mingle and meet Houston’s passionate craft beer community. Beyond that, if you can think of a good craft beer bar in the greater Houston area, there’s a strong chance they will be hosting a Parish event with either Andrew or a local Parish rep. For a full list of events, check out Silver Eagle’s event page.

The man himself, Andrew Godley    Photo Credit: Parish Brewing Co.

I myself am very excited for Houston to be receiving Parish distribution. Having lived in New Orleans the past 1.5 years, I have been spoiled to try all of Parish’s offerings, and I often make the 2-hour drive to their taproom to try brewery exclusive beers and buy some of their limited releases that don’t see distribution. Houston is in for a treat with their year-round lineup, and prepare to have your minds blown when some of their limited release seasonal offerings make their way west on I-10 ***cough***DDH Ghost***cough.

H Town could receive this (the DDH Ghost, not Gumbeaux)    Photo Credit: Britt Antley

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SpindleTap Juiceton, a leading example of the NEIPA style in Houston. | Photo: Larry Koestler

It’s hard to believe it’s been a year since Houston Beer Guide was kind enough to publish “Who Will be Houston’s Tree House or Trillium?” It’s even harder to believe how much progress has been made since I wrote that essay.

My initial hope was that a newcomer to the Houston craft beer scene would come online sometime in 2017 with a near-exclusive focus on New England-Style India Pale Ales. It turns out we’re inching ever closer to the launch of a brewer that has indeed stated its desire to make the NEIPA a core focus, alongside huge Imperial Stouts, in the form of Humble’s Ingenious Brewing, whose long-anticipated doors will hopefully be flung open sometime during the first quarter of 2018.

What I didn’t expect was how many already-existing Houston breweries would not only embrace the style in 2017, but end up making some of the most memorable beers of the year, several of which could hold their own among the upper echelon of brewers of the style. And perhaps the most surprising sidebar of all surrounding Houston’s NEIPA craze of 2017 is that this is one of the few instances I can recall where Houston is not only ahead of Austin in a craft beer category, but absolutely smoking our rival to the west. Outside of Pinthouse Pizza, Austin’s breweries seem to be mostly reluctant to explore the style.

While we’re not quite at what I would consider the best-case scenario: fresh cans of NEIPA available seven days a week, something only Boston can currently claim, Houston has made impressive strides in a very short amount of time. For a period of time over the summer into the fall, Brookshire’s Baa Baa Brewhouse was canning a new NEIPA on a near-weekly basis. Conroe’s Copperhead removed some of the most annoying parts of NEIPA culture, the lines and FOMO, and implemented a wonderful online ticketing system. And SpindleTap began to ramp up its production of new iterations of the style while also helpfully adopting the online-ordering & pick-up-at-your-convenience route, delivering some of my favorite beers of the year in the process.

Progress in 2017

In light of all of the progress Houston has made, here’s a quick look at some of the breweries that have helped build a local world of NEIPA (even if some of them would rather not refer to the style under that nomenclature) that didn’t even exist a year ago:

– B-52, technically the very first in the greater Houston area to produce a hazy, juicy IPA back in November/December 2016, continued to delight palates in 2017, first by canning its popular Wheez the Juice, and following that with subsequent crowler and can releases throughout the year. The brewery has also added milkshake variants of many of its NEIPAs to its offerings.

– Whole Foods has been the city’s most steady producer of NEIPAs, along with accompanying milkshake versions of their beers, with new releases more or less weekly since early summer. Whole Foods and B-52 teamed up several months back to produce a hugely dry-hopped DIPA called Whole Payload, and rumor has it that both breweries will be teaming up again in the not-too-distant future, perhaps with some additional friends.

– Sigma Brewing made waves with its 4XDH Medina Sod, and recently released its most-hopped beer ever, The Apparatus.

– Great Heights became the first Houston brewery ever to launch with an NEIPA, Fruity Pellets, and recently released a more amped-up version, Fruitier Pellets.

– No Label threw its hat into the ring, releasing the successful Sittin’ Sidehaze over the summer, and delivering a second NEIPA at the end of he year, Phaze Two.

– Copperhead brought several big, juicy IPAs to the table while still staying true to the brewery’s DNA, with Feeding Frenzy, Citraddicted and Alpha Serpentus all whetting hophead whistles.

– Baa Baa Brewhouse, one of the the smallest breweries in the greater Houston area, went from brewing the first beer in Houston specifically referred to as a New England-Style India Pale Ale, to creating a small frenzy over the summer with its (very) limited canning runs of its small-batch NEIPAs. I know I’m not the only one hoping that the owners, who still run the brewery as a part-time endeavor, decide to go all-in, especially if they keep producing beers of the caliber they delivered in the second half of 2017. An increase in the hours they are open would certainly be welcome. Baa Baa is one of the most difficult breweries for me to pick up beers from, despite being the second closest brewery to my house. Their typical hours, Saturday from 5-8pm, fall right around dinnertime for those of us with young families. And they often underestimate the demand for their beer, leaving folks out of luck upon arrival, but they should be commended for taking advantage of online ticket sales when demand is expected to be exceptionally high. While I’m wary of stoking the hype fires too dramatically, the leveling up in beer quality and the discomfort caused by limited production that Baa Baa has been going through reminds me of the early days of Tree House in 2012. I suppose there are worse problems to have.

– SpindleTap was the first locally to really nail the hallmarks of what I look for in the NEIPA style with Houston Haze, and things only got better from there. After spending the first few months post-Haze focused on production of their new flagship, the brewery started branching out this past summer, and has since released some stellar examples of what the style can be, including the recently re-released Hops Drop, Draped Up, 5% Tint, and Operation Juice Drop and Juiceton, the latter two of which were my top two local beers of 2017. With the brewery set to release its most heavily-hopped beer ever at the end of January, Heavy Hands DIPA (plus another batch of Juiceton), 2018 is already off to a stellar start.

Raising the Bar in 2018

Now with all said, there’s still plenty of work to be done. For every successful local NEIPA, there’s been at least one that didn’t quite work out the way the brewers likely intended it to. That’s to be expected any time an entire city’s worth of producers begins trying its hand at something that no one had really taken a stab at before, but there’s also going to be less room for error going forward. While I’ve never been afraid to call it like I see it, I’ll also admit to occasionally going into cheerleading mode because I want the style to succeed locally.

Going forward, simply brewing a beer that may carry some of the characteristics of the style without the depth and flavor to back it up may not be good enough. There will be less room for forgiveness for stumbles as the beer drinking community gets increasingly exposed to top-tier examples of the style. With several very good NEIPAs having been brewed locally, not to mention geographical rival Parish elevating its game to what many would consider an elite level, Houston’s breweries will have to continue to iterate on and perfect their techniques while developing new and even more flavorful recipes to continue winning the hearts and minds of the city’s juice fiends.

The good news is, a very solid foundation has been laid, and (I still can’t believe I feel this way from where my head was at 365 days ago) I’m confident that Houston has the talent and passion to not only meet the needs of the city’s lovers of the style, but enter the national dialogue as a sought-after destination of juice bombs as well.

The post One Year Later: Houston Breweries Have Risen to the NEIPA Challenge first appeared on Houston Beer Guide.

The post One Year Later: Houston Breweries Have Risen to the NEIPA Challenge appeared first on Houston Beer Guide.

Photo: Larry Koestler

With the six-month anniversary of my challenge to local breweries to start brewing the hottest beer style in the country — the New England-Style IPA (NEIPA) — rapidly approaching, now seemed like as apt a time as any to check in and see where things stand, especially in light of the unexpectedly impressive amount of style-related activity we’ve seen during this timeframe.

It’s worth noting that there seems to be something of a dividing line among local breweries, with some fully embracing the NEIPA nomenclature — and it’s not going anywhere, with sites like BeerAdvocate and Untappd recognizing its ubiquity and distinctiveness from the classic West Coast-Style IPA and opting to finally categorize it as its own thing — while others seem reluctant to hop on what they presumably perceive as a regional bandwagon phenomenon, and instead have chosen to offer up their own interpretations that are generally described with non-location-based adjectives like “hazy.”

Regardless of what school of thought you subscribe to on the topic of “NEIPA” taxonomy, there have been a slew of beers released in the past six months that many would agree live up to the hallmarks of the NEIPA — aromatic, juicy, soft, creamy, hazy, massively citrus/tropical-forward, and relatively minimal bitterness. Also, while some consider “milkshake”-style beers to be a part of the NEIPA canon — which is totally fine by me! — I personally do not, as I find the flavor profiles of those beers to be different enough that I’m not quite convinced that they belong in the same category (though I could very well be persuaded otherwise! Admittedly I do not have anywhere near as much experience with milkshake IPAs), and so this list does not include those beers.

By my count — and, try as I might, it’s possible I may miss a few, as there really have been a lot of releases — the following should be a mostly comprehensive list of local beers that have been brewed in the style (this list only includes officially released beers, not pilot batches):

• 8th Wonder – S.L.A.B.
• B-52 – Wheez the Juice (16-oz. cans)
• Baa Baa Brewhouse – Cat and the Fiddle
• Baa Baa Brewhouse – Cow Jumped over the Moon (12-oz. cans)
• Baa Baa Brewhouse – Ennie (12-oz. cans)
• Baa Baa Brewhouse – The Little Dog Laughed
• Copperhead – Feeding Frenzy (12-oz. cans)
• Copperhead – Kangaroo Killer
• No Label – Sittin’ Sidehaze
• Sigma – 4X DH Medina Sod
• SpindleTap – Houston Haze (16-oz. cans)
• Whole Foods Market Brewing Co. – Detonate
• Whole Foods Market Brewing Co. – DL Double (hasn’t historically been one, but recent Untappd checkins would seem to indicate a revised recipe)
• Whole Foods Market Brewing Co. – Haze Phaze
• Whole Foods Market Brewing Co. – Hop Explorer X
• Whole Foods Market Brewing Co. – Hop Explorer XI
• Whole Foods Market Brewing Co. – NEAF
• Whole Foods Market Brewing Co. – Overcast
• Whole Foods Market Brewing Co. – Scattered Showers
• Whole Foods Market Brewing Co. – Spottie Oaty
• Whole Foods Market Brewing Co. – Steady Sippin’
• Whole Foods Market Brewing Co. – Tropical Storms

Which ones do I like best? Drop me a line on Twitter and I’d be happy to have a conversation about it.

The above doesn’t even include forthcoming Ingenious Brewing Co., which expects to open in Humble later this summer, and which I previewed back in February. The duo has had a busy spring, setting up free tastings across the greater Houston-area and further tweaking their already-delicious recipes while adding a slew of additional beers to their portfolio. Highlights include a revised Hop Delivery System, which is now a Double IPA, and Northeast Houston IPA, also retooled as a DIPA.

Photo: SpindleTap Brewery

And lastly, I’m excited to announce that I’m collaborating with SpindleTap and Boston homebrewer Rich Wein on a hazy, juicy double NEIPA called Juiceton, which should be out in cans in the first half of August. Juiceton will be a hazy, juicy AF DIPA clocking in at 8.0%, with the creamy, soft, pillowy mouthfeel you love, propping up heroic quantities of Citra, Mosaic, and Simcoe. Hit with multiple rounds of dry-hopping, this worthy successor to Houston Haze will deliver that massively tropical and fruit-forward hop flavor we all crave.

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SpindleTap Brewery’s Houston Haze NEIPA

When I wrote “Who will be Houston’s Tree House or Trillium?”, I figured we’d see some breweries gradually approach the style and brew some reasonable attempts, but that it would take some time before we saw a true player on the hazy AF juice front. SpindleTap said “f%7* all that noise” and is on the cusp of releasing the most flavorful and true-to-style local NEIPA I’ve had yet. I really enjoyed B-52’s Wheez the Juice, and hope to see its continued production, and Whole Foods Market Brewing Co. also delivered a very tasty IPA last week called NEAF. But SpindleTap’s Houston Haze has thrown down the gauntlet and set a new local standard.

Bursting with orange and grapefruit flavor from heaping amounts of Citra, and pineapple, mango and other tropical fruit notes from Galaxy, Houston Haze is a 6.5% double-dry-hopped delight. It’s close to a textbook example of the kinds of beers I’ve been hoping to see brewed in Houston and that prompted me to write the original essay. It’s also the first of the local stabs at the style that I’ve consumed to truly nail the mouthfeel — one of, if not the most critical component of NEIPA. Houston Haze features a soft, full-bodied creaminess with just the right amount of astringency. The body helps amplify the beer’s character while serving as a canvas for the flavor complexity, a result of the interplay of the heavy post-boil hop load and the London Ale III yeast strain.

And perhaps the most important signifier for me when drinking NEIPA is that, when done right, it lingers on the tongue long after the last sip, coating the palate in lupulin love and making it nigh-impossible to not go back for more. Houston Haze absolutely does this.

Release Details

Recognizing the fragility and best-consumed-fresh nature of NEIPAs, SpindleTap is only selling Houston Haze at the brewery (10622 Hirsch Rd, Houston, TX 77016). Sales begin Friday, March 17, at 10 a.m. SpindleTap only canned 80 cases, and there is a two (2) four-pack-per-person limit. Four-packs are $16. And, in case you miss out this go-round, they’re already planning to brew it again next week. Happy hunting!

The post SpindleTap Nails it With Houston Haze first appeared on Houston Beer Guide.

The post SpindleTap Nails it With Houston Haze appeared first on Houston Beer Guide.

Ingenious Brewing Co.’s Hop Delivery System, a double dry-hopped IPA

Out of all the local brewery responses to the “Who Will Be Houston’s Trillium or Tree House?“ essay, there was one that carried an unexpected air of intrigue, given that it stemmed from a producer that hasn’t even opened yet. Amid the thread of a Facebook post about the article, one commenter innocuously announced the existence of a forthcoming brewery, alongside said brewery’s intention to make regular production of multiple Northeast-Style IPAs a primary focus and citing Trillium and other northeast legends as key influences. The brewery’s name? Ingenious Brewing Co.

Ingenious Brewing is the brainchild of a Houston native, Justin, and his business partner/brewmaster from Philadelphia, Mike, who met seven years ago while Justin was in grad school in Pennsylvania. The two bonded over their shared love of the emerging craft beer scene in New England, including the explosively hoppy beers that made Hill Farmstead and The Alchemist famous. This later led to a love affair with the current kings of the NEIPA, Trillium and Tree House, as well as other hazy heavy hitters like Tired Hands.

As Justin began making plans to move back to Texas for his career, he expressed his surprise to Mike that no local Houston breweries were making beers in the tropical AF, hazy, creamy NEIPA style. Out of this conversation came the inspiration to bring the juice to Houston, and Ingenious Brewing was born. Shortly after this, Mike — whose background includes a decade of home brewing, along with collaborations with several local PA brewers, moved to Houston and began laying the groundwork for what would ultimately lead to the construction of a new brewery just northeast of the city in Humble. While the brewery hasn’t announced the address quite yet — the closing is imminent — all of the equipment is ready to be installed and the vast majority of permits have been approved, and the duo hope to open the brewery’s doors this May.

I recently had the privilege of getting to try a handful of Ingenious’s test batches, and while I am concerned about setting unreasonable expectations, I will say this: if you are an insatiable hop-requiring animal with a severe case of lupulin lust and a fan of the double dry-hopped turbid juice that’s being produced in New England and the greater New York area, I don’t think you’ll be disappointed by what Ingenious intends to bring to the table.

I tasted four(!) different NEIPAs, each of which boasted distinctive fruit-forward flavor profiles that showcased the soft, creamy body and mouthfeel the style is known for. Humble Galaxy is — you guessed it — a 6.5% ABV Galaxy-drenched IPA fermented with Conan yeast. The 6.5% ABV Northeast Houston IPA is something of a hybrid, with generous helpings of Simcoe providing a robust West Coast-Style pine flavor profile (supported by El Dorado for good measure) while retaining the Northeast-Style pillowy body. Breaking things up was an absolute beast of an Imperial Stout, the sublime Barrel-Aged Ice Cream Sundae. Brewed with cacao nibs and strawberries, it was shockingly smooth and easy to drink for a stout checking in at 15% ABV.

And lastly we had what Justin expects will be their flagship, a double dry-hopped beaut called Hop Delivery System, a 6.4% ABV IPA brewed with monstrous amounts of Citra, Galaxy and El Dorado, and a Citra Dry-Hopped Hop Delivery System (both fermented with style vanguard London Ale III). If you’ve read me previously you know I am gaga for Citra-hopped beers (Double Dry-Hopped Fort Point and Julius are my two desert island brews), and while both HDS IPAs were excellent, I enjoyed the regular Hop Delivery System the most, as the interplay of the three hop varietals presented an overwhelmingly tropical flavor and an added layer of complexity.

While there is still a ways to go, I feel comfortable saying that Houstonians are going to be in for a treat once Ingenious is up and running, and their eventual plans to start canning 4-packs of 16-oz tallboys to be sold on-premise only to ensure the freshest possible consumption should be music to NEIPA lovers’ ears.

The post Ingenious Brewing Is Poised to Fill a Hoppy Void in Houston first appeared on Houston Beer Guide.

The post Ingenious Brewing Is Poised to Fill a Hoppy Void in Houston appeared first on Houston Beer Guide.

Conroe’s B-52 Brewing Company is releasing their hazy IPA, Wheez the Juice, in cans on Friday, March 3rd. Wheez the Juice is an IPA brewed in a similar fashion to the Northeast-style IPA that Larry has been talking about for the last several weeks. B-52 is hesitant to use the term “NEIPA” to describe this beer, likely because that term carries with it very high expectations. I asked if they considered the beer a NEIPA and they said, “from an ingredient/process perspective it is very, very, very similar so you can take that for what you will.” They’ve released several test batches of Wheez the Juice in the past, but “this is the first time the beer was built “from the ground up” including yeast choice, water profile, late kettle additions, etc.” according to founder Chad Daniel.

This is Houston’s first hazy IPA can release, which to us at Houston Beer Guide is a pretty big deal. In the northeast United States, the NEIPA style is almost exclusively sold in cans at the breweries, rather than in kegs to bars. The cans allow the beer to keep the requisite haziness, whereas the beer could become progressively more clear coming out of a keg as the yeast settles. Hazy IPAs are made to be consumed very fresh, and B-52 will be selling them straight off the canning line. There will be approximately 50 cases (300 4-packs) available.

Since the phrase “Wheez the Juice” is from the movie Encino Man, B-52 is leaning into the Encino Man theme for the release. They’ll have Goat’s Mobile Catering there to serve Chimichangas and Burritos (the meat group of the character Stoney’s 4 main food groups). They’re hoping to offer the other 3 food groups as well: Milk Duds for the dairy group, Sweet Tarts for the fruit group, and Corn Nuts for the vegetable group. And they’ll even be showing Encino Man on the projection screen once it is dark enough to see. And yes, there will be some wheezing of the juice as well…

The beer will be available on draft when they open at 5pm, and cans will be for sale right off the canning line. The early estimate is that they will be for $16 per 4 pack, but that price has not been finalized. They’re still working out the specifics on the can release, so check back here, or watch their Facebook page to see the limits per person and how the line will work. My assumption is it will end up similar to the old Freetail releases, where everyone is guaranteed to get some but the limits will be based on how many people show up. I expect all the cans to sellout on Friday.

Latest update from B-52:

– The taproom will open at 4 pm.
– Wheez The Juice will be available on draft at 4 pm (special variation tappings will be available as well)
– Numbered wristbands for cans will be handed out first come, first serve.
– A wristband designates your place in line, it does not guarantee beer.
– Can sales will begin at 5 pm.
– 50 cases will be available (1200 cans).
– Singles are $5 and 4-packs $16.
– Limit will be based on turnout (at least one 4-pack per person)
– Encino Man starts at 8 pm.

B-52 Brewing Company

Facebook: B52Brewing

Twitter: @B52Brewing
Instagram: @B52Brewing

12470 Milroy Ln, Conroe, TX 77304

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Apparently I should write about things I want to see happen more often. Since publishing “Who will be Houston’s Trillium or Tree House?” a handful of our area breweries have gone public with their intentions to attempt to brew a beer closely adhering to the style hallmarks — huge tropical fruit flavor thanks to obscene amounts of post-boil dry-hop additions during whirlpool, fermentation and/or under CO2 pressure of uber-popular citrusy hops like Citra, Galaxy, Mosaic, Nelson, Amarillo and El Dorado; super-soft, creamy and juicy body/mouthfeel as a result of the interplay of the water treatment, specialty grain bill and London Ale (1318) or English Ale (007) yeast strains; and minimal (but still present) lingering bitterness due in part to almost no kettle hop additions — of the supernova that is the Northeast-Style India Pale Ale (NEIPA), or at least their interpretation of such.

Baa Baa Brewhouse was among the first to respond, and I enjoyed their initial stab at it, which they are now tweaking in preparation for a more scaled-up release on March 4. Katy’s No Label then announced last week that they are taking a stab at a double dry-hopped New England-Style IPA; as did Spindletap (while also coining #HoustonHaze); it was mentioned in the comments of my Cow Jumped Over the Moon review that Sigma is also planning one (though I haven’t seen an official announcement anywhere yet); and there are a couple of forthcoming breweries with exciting plans whose beers I am very eager to try. In the midst of this flurry of activity, Conroe’s Copperhead Brewery also announced the release of their own double dry-hopped Double IPA, Feeding Frenzy, and were kind enough to invite me out to try it.

Brewed with copious amounts of Citra, alongside Comet, Amarillo and Apollo, Feeding Frenzy announces itself immediately with its huge tropical aroma. It’s a fairly deep orange in appearance, with Fawcett Maris Otter and flaked oats in the grain bill, and pleasantly hazy. Flavor-wise the citrus is robust and plentiful; there’s absolutely no mistaking this beer for anything but Citra-dominated. And it is deceptively, dangerously easy to down for the 8.0% ABV. In fact, it may well be the tastiest Houston-brewed DIPA I’ve had — I actually said the same thing last time I had a Copperhead DIPA almost a year ago, and it’s clear owner and brewmaster Seth Earnest knows his way around hops.

Of course, you’re probably wanting to know whether I thought it was a good representation of a NEIPA. And, my answer is that it’s actually not an NEIPA (nor did Seth say it was one). Granted, Feeding Frenzy was brewed utilizing many of the aforementioned NE-style techniques (and these days specifically calling out double dry-hopping is a signifier in the northeast in particular), but the beer was also fermented with Chico (or American Ale) yeast, which, while historically hailed for its clean character, doesn’t lend itself to the creamy/juicy/soft mouthfeel that is a critical component of the style. As such, Feeding Frenzy still finished decidedly West Coast for me, with a bit of a harsher bitterness than I’d want in an NE-style beer. Seth mentioned to me that for the next batch, which will be appropriately scaled up, he plans to pitch Conan yeast instead, which is best known as the strain that made Heady Topper the most sought-after beer in the world three years ago. I’ll be curious to see what Conan does to Feeding Frenzy, although in my experience, the yeast strain really needs to be either 1318 or 007 to nail the Northeast-style mouthfeel.

That all said, I want to reiterate: it was still a very good beer. And ultimately it doesn’t even matter what I think as the beer was an unequivocal success in their taproom this past weekend, prompting Copperhead to add a new batch to its brew schedule roughly every other month going forward. And there’s even more great news for fans of beer in cans (a.k.a. everyone): while the next batch of Feeding Frenzy will be available in 4-packs of 12-oz. bottles to-go directly from the brewery, Seth intends to start canning all of their hoppy beers in the not-too-distant future, with flagship Striker IPA first up to hit six-packs of 12-oz. cans, eventually followed by Feeding Frenzy later on down the line.

The post A look at Copperhead Brewery’s Feeding Frenzy IIPA first appeared on Houston Beer Guide.

The post A look at Copperhead Brewery’s Feeding Frenzy IIPA appeared first on Houston Beer Guide.

photo: @larry_koestler

My recent essay on the greater Houston area’s relative lack of beers brewed in the hottest style in the country, the Northeast-Style or New England-Style India Pale Ale (NEIPA), ended up striking more of a chord than I’d hoped, with a handful of local (and forthcoming) breweries coming out of the woodwork revealing near- and longer-term plans to try and slake the thirst of the insatiable double dry-hopped-lusting masses.

One such brewery in particular, Brookshire newcomer Baa Baa Brewhouse, even went so far as to publicly accept the challenge via video, and released a NE-Style Pale Ale called Cow Jumped Over the Moon this past Sunday. While Conroe’s B-52 Brewing released Wheez the Juice back in December, and Eureka Heights produced Business Time last month, neither brewery had explicitly called out or categorized either beer as Northeast-Style in any of their marketing (as far as I can tell, anyway), making Baa Baa Brewhouse the first local brewery to brew a beer in the style and also refer to it as such (“NEIPA” was even the style descriptor on the brewery chalkboard). And with Baa Baa Brewhouse playfully answering the bell, conveniently being located on my side of town, and being perhaps the most kid-friendly brewery around with a fully dedicated play area for children, I knew I had to take the beer for a spin.

Hopped primarily with Galaxy (with Columbus and Magnum for bittering), the first thing you’ll notice is that the beer mostly looks the part. Color-wise it’s a deeper orange — almost bordering on brown — than many of the best-known examples of the style, and proudly turbid, closer to the Hoof Hearted Egg Drop Soup family of NEIPAs. Aromatically it was a bit dull — always a surprise when a double dry-hopped beer is lacking in aroma — but the beer was probably served too cold, because I also found the overall flavor profile slightly muted during the first few sips. The beer really revealed itself as it warmed, with the soft, juicy mouthfeel NEIPA style hallmarks taking center stage. Galaxy imparted a subtle fruitiness, but didn’t assault the palate with a tropical fruit basket explosion; I’m not sure I would’ve been able to blindly pick out the fact that it was a Galaxy single-hop. The 5.7% ABV also likely played a bit of a role in subduing the taste for me — don’t get me wrong, I adore a flavor-bursting American Pale Ale, but having been on a steady diet of double dry-hopped seven-to-eight-percenters from up north, my perception of just how flavorful a given beer might be is admittedly a bit skewed. There was also a very subtle estery note I was picking up that I wasn’t wild about, but didn’t detract from the overall experience. While NEIPAs are known for being lightly carbed (relative to other styles), this beer was also a bit undercarbed, as astutely noted by the fellow hophead I met who said he drove 40 miles from the city just to try the beer (proving my hypothesis that they will in fact come if you build it).

While the above may sound overly critical, on the whole I enjoyed Cow Jumped Over the Moon, and applaud Baa Baa Brewhouse on a solid first effort. The fact remains that virtually no one locally has even tried to produce something in this style yet, and this was by far the closest anyone has come in the Houston area that I’m aware of. If you’re going in expecting Tree House/Trillium-level insanity, don’t — very few breweries come out of the chute lighting the world on fire. The brewery themselves candidly shared that while they were proud of this effort, they’re excited to take what they’ve learned and continue to make even better beer. I’ll drink to that.

The post Review: Baa Baa Brewhouse’s Cow Jumped Over the Moon – Houston Area’s First NEIPA first appeared on Houston Beer Guide.

The post Review: Baa Baa Brewhouse’s Cow Jumped Over the Moon – Houston Area’s First NEIPA appeared first on Houston Beer Guide.