California West Coast IPA Thread (2022)

Rumor is that my local Beachwood does ship anywhere in California.

 

Beach Retreat is tasting mighty fine right now @unlikelyspiderperson

 

Urban Roots is at the top of my list of breweries to try that I haven't yet. Another one is Mad Fritz which I have a tasting appt tomorrow for, pretty excited about that.

Having a Drake's Denogginizer now that is decidedly old school, with big pine and bitter citrus pith. I love that style and it's boosting my transition from work to weekend mode very effectively.

 

Is that a pizza port collaboration? I feel like they had a pizza port collaboration called Beach Run there last night but I'm not sure. As I understand it the cans we see are picked up personally by the bar owner in the bay area. He goes down and fills up a van with cans and kegs. And then their sold like draught pints for like $6-$7. So I don't mess with anything over 6 weeks or so, and usually not older than a month since it's such a premium.

I think the beach run cans were from December

I'm drinking some Dankful from 1/20 though and glad that SN is keeping that on the shelves relatively fresh. Hope it stays that way over the summer

 

Bear Rupublic now dating via a PKGD vs previously Best By on 12packs of Racer 5, individual bottles which are still almost impossible to see. Good transition

 

Well I dropped in to Eel River brewing this evening to discover that today they released their annual organic dipa Earth Thirst. It's a solid enjoyable classic wc dipa. Glad to have a pour the day it's packaged and enjoyed a can at home too

 

I used to love Eel River when they had wider distribution in Oregon, them and Butte Creek ( are they still around?) for organic beers.

 

They've pulled back a lot. Probably good for them, they've been catching up with the times as well. I actually tried a wc ipa dry hopped with blueberry puree last week and it was remarkably tasty.

I hope they can settle comfortably into their place as a solid local brewer

 

I liked Eel River's Amber ale quite a lot for some reason. I wonder if they still have it on tap?

 

It was on tap today. They haven't abandoned many of their standards

 

I need to venture down to Fortuna this camping season

 

I believe Beach Run was a collab with Alesmith. PO did a collab version with BW called Beach Retreat. I believe it was the first one of the Neach Retreat. BW/PP version came out a month later? Now the new BW version of Beach Retreat.
@unlikelyspiderperson > https://shop.beachwoodbrewing.com/

 

Butte Creek has been gone for a decade at least. They were bought by Mendocino Brewing (Eye of the Hangover, anyone?) which of course closed as well.
I recall both Eel River and Butte Creek having a similar, not-so-good husky/grainy quality which lead me to believe high quality organic brewing ingredients were difficult to source. I don't know if that assumption was true, but that was many years ago. The Eel River beers I've had recently weren't bad at all. I'm glad they're still kicking, they have a great rebrand/logo!

 

This has gotten much better as far as malt goes, hops are another story. In order to get with the times in terms of hops they have begun making many ipas that are organic malt and conventional hops, from talking to folks there they've said that many modern hops have exactly 0 acres of organic cultivation going on.

That said, I just picked up their annual organic dipa - Earth Thirst - yesterday and it's nice. Not as bright as last year, when they prominently named the organic hop varieties used, but still a very enjoyable dipa that has a distinctly northwest vibe to it

 

Next time we have a debate about fresh hops vs wet hops, I'm going to use this post as evidence that you have no idea what you're talking about.

 

!tranquillo amigo, think loza farms

 

I deserve that. As a devoted beer nerd I must deeply apologize to the community. This beer was briefly conditioned on blueberries. It almost tasted like the best beers wet hopped with Mosaic

 

Yesterday was a Kern River kinda day. Chuurch!, canned 2-21 was so delicious. Finished off with Citra. The 3 C’s from KRBC. Today is going to be a RiiP day. Will check out their new location in HB.