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Showing results for tags 'Mosaic Hops'.
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Sierra Nevada was a foundational brewery in the American craft beer revolution. They now operate a bi-coastal brewing operation (as do "micro" favorites Stone and Green Flash), have nationwide distribution and are readily available at your local chain grocery for a reasonable price. It seems that Safeway has 12-packs for around $15 on sale most every week. They are the #2 craft brewer in the U.S. behind Sam Adams and the #6 overall (by barrels produced). All of which to say that they should be in the sneering cross hairs or any self-respecting (or self-loathing?) beer snob. But that is stupid because they still produce what may be the best American Pale Ale (mild IPA, really) in the country. Brewer after brewer would tell you that "S.N.P.A." is still the reference point for the style. Torpedo is S.N.P.A kicked up to a full blown IPA. Celebration is a consistently good fall harvest ale that shows interesting variation year-to-year (although I don't know why they package it the way they do; given the release time frame around Thanksgiving I wonder how many people pick this up thinking it's a traditional dark and spiced up Christmas beer?). I picked up their latest Beer Camp release last week. Beer Camp is Sierra Nevada's grass roots brewing initiative in which they give home brewers a shot at creating beer on an industrial scale (reading through the marketing, I suspect that some of these "amateurs" are a little more experienced than they let on). Out of 52 beers produced every year they pick one to produce and mass market to the country as a Spring seasonal (that shows up in early January, naturally). This year it is a Tropical IPA, so named not because of the addition of exotic fruits to the mash, but the product of some newer strains of hops that have become very popular recently (Citra, Mosaic and El Dorado primarily). They tend to produce marked "sweet" floral profiles as a contrast to the resiny "piney" hops that dominated the IPA hop wars of the past 10-15 years. The usual grapefruit aromas are apparent, but with that a more pronounced mango/sweet melon. The result is similar to what brewers started doing with Belgian yeast strains in IPAs a few years ago, and it is cool to see them mimicking the effect using a totally different base component of the beer. What I liked most about Tropical IPA is that it showcases these hops' characteristics without making you commit to a bruiser of an IIPA like Solar Abyss (although at 6.7% abv it's not exactly a lightweight). There are already dozens and dozens of Citra IPAs and IIPAs on the market, but when taking into account availability and approachability I think Tropical IPA is one of the best out there.
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