Hanger 24 Craft Brewery

On a trip down to my old stomping grounds over the Labor Day weekend I had the good fortune to hear about (Thanks CP)and visit a little gem of a brewery tucked away at the Redlands Municipal Airport.... not once but twice.

A mere 45 minute drive down the hill from the heart of the Cultural Wasteland this 2+year old brewery already boosts which could quite possibly be the entire Inland Empire's finest collection of craft brews.

It may be only a small, little, tiny coincidence that our visit coincided with the presence of one of their latest 2010 creations. The nearly 9% double IPA produced for this years American Craft Brew Week.

I suggest a visit to their website to see their full line of offerings for I can only tell you here about the Orange Wheat, The Pale Ale, IPA, Double IPA, Chocolate Porter. Oh wait... apparently I did try a few of their standards besides the Double IPA after all.

The Orange Wheat was as refreshing as anyone could dare expect with a big orange nostril bite and a clean unfiltered thirst quenching quality. The Pale Ale boasted a palate full of Amarillo hops and out did the IPA which was a bit too balanced for our weird tastes. Ours being myself and my old buddy Ralph who oddly was later in the weekend destined to embark on an unexpected sojourn into the murky realm of mixed gender martial arts body mass superiority demonstrations. Ya....you're right....don't ask.

But that's another story for some other blog because here we're all about the hops.....or in the case of the Porter.... chocolate.... and lots of it. A great beer for chicks if they'd get over the color of it....beautiful medium mouth feel with coffee and a slight vanilla presence.

So ya... a bunch of great beers.....uh..oh ya....and that West Coast style hop brute Double IPA that makes any trip to that airport well worth the occasional bumpy roads. All my favorite hops are in this baby...Columbus, Amarillo, Simco and Citra which just unleashes serious citrus and tropical fruit aromas. There is a lot going on in this beer.... apparently including some local honey.

The Hanger 24 growlers are unfortunately the expensive dumb kind that are difficult to haul and store but we bit the bullet and ended up walking out of there with four of them.

That was Saturday and on Monday we revisited with more of the Hop Hunter clan and refilled the empties with more excellent goodness for the long road home to Nor-Cal. A full growler rests quietly in my fridge at this very moment......

Now there is good reason to go to Redlands aside from the famous bicycle race.