Alpine Duet out-duels IPA Legends

Saturday night March 6th my hop world seemed to stand still for a moment when 'beer cellar boy for a day' Rick Sellers (no relation) announced the final Best of Show results for the first annual S.O.B.E.R.* Group Epic IPA tasting. Alpine Brewing's Duet stood alone above all the rest of the field. A field that included the Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig of beer legend... Pliny the Elder and Pliny the Younger of Russian River fame .

To be honest and fair I must admit that any one of a half dozen of the beers collected could have been the winner, the offerings gathered for this event were that awe inspiring......and in reality the true winners were the folks that answered the call to attend.

Due to the number of beers involved Mark 'The Beer Geek' Zahn and I decided to split them up into single IPA and Double/Triple IPA categories. We utilized Marks modified 50 point judging system that only included four factors....Aroma, flavor, mouth feel and overall impression.

The Beers are listed in their finishing order: (The finishing order was revised a bit after a review of the data in a less blurry environment a couple days after the evening in question. But like I said....we're splinting hairs on a lot of these beers......the scoring was close and the top five or six in each category could have been a medal winner)

Single IPA

1. Duet - Alpine Brewing Company (Alpine CA)

2. Blind Pig - Russian River Brewing (Santa Rosa, CA)

3. Gold Digger IPA - Auburn Ale House (Auburn CA)

4. Sculpin - Ballast Point (San Diego CA)

5. Derek's IPA - Darek Smith (Home Brew)

6. Ichthyosaur IPA - Great Basin (Sparks NV)

7. RR IPA - Russian River

8. O'brien's IPA - Alpine Brewing

9. Nelson - Alpine Brewing

10. Rockslide IPA - Fifty/Fifty Brewing (Truckee, CA)

2IPA

1. Pliny The Younger - Russian River

2. Hop Sauce - Rubicon Brewing (Sacramento CA)

3. Bad Boy - Alpine

4. Uber Hoppy - Valley Brewing (Stockton CA)

5. Pliny The Elder - Russian River

6. Exponential Hoppiness - Alpine

7. PU240 - Auburn Ale House

8. Imperial - Green Flash (Vista CA). (An older growler sample, should have been excluded)

BEST of SHOW

1. Duet

2. Bad Boy

3. Pliny the Younger

The beers we choose were all personal favorites but still had everything to do with their seasonal availability. I was lucky enough to have a friend gather me 2 growlers of Pliny the Younger on that mad day in Santa Rosa (See previous blog entry). A few days later I learned from the Alpine Brewing Newsletter that their double IPA Bad Boy was coming out and going to be available just a week prior to the release their triple IPA Exponential Hoppiness.

An email to Alpine Brewer Pat McIlhenney confirmed my suspicions that both those beers would be available for a couple of overlapping days in mid February. In addition their Duet, O'Brien's IPA and Nelson were all also in stock at the brewery for growler fills.

Spurred on by a drunken evening at our local Owl Club with good buddy Bob Silva a plan was loosely hatched. We just HAD to have these beers for scientific testing purposes.

The wheels and deals were set in motion.

The Alpine growlers were going to be the key to the entire operation so naturally I immediately called up my old buddy Ralph...who fortunately lives a mere 2.5 hour drive from the Alpine Brewery and has 12 empty Alpine growers just sitting patiently on his garage shelves. Not enough for a proper growler expedition but a good start none the less.

After some quick math I figured we needed 20 full Alpine growlers in Roseville for the event.

Ralph set out two days later and secured 23 growlers of Alpine goodness (as well as some Sculpin from a quick Ballast Point stop)and now we were truly committed to the event both mentally and financially.

While Ralph kept the growlers on ice in So-Cal we went to work gathering the remaining items.

We begged a gallon of the Hop Sauce from brewer Scott Cramlet at Rubicon Brewing. Sponsored a ten growler weekday run to Russian River for their IPA's and used a going away party excuse to fill four growlers of Auburn Ale House Gold Digger IPA on a Tuesday evening.

The Uber Hoppy amazingly became available from our favorite local Beach Hut Deli in the 11th hour (thanks Nick). And kudos to the Frosts for making the trip across the mountains for the Great Basin and Fifty/Fifty growlers. New friend Derek Smith secretly supplied his home brew twenty minutes before the blind tasting began and also made the weekday RR run for us.

Of course there is a great many other big hoppy beers from San Diego and Northern California that we could have, should have and would have added to the mix but we gladly saved those for the next Epic event. There are always more comparisons and evaluations that must be done....In the name of science of course.

Seasonal availability and travel scenarios will likely dictate the next round as well. I would love to include another out of town brewery into the mix.....a little place called Walking Man from Stevenson Washington....another long time hoppy favorite of mine that I never get nearly enough of.

Special thanks must go out to my Mom for her great company and automobile that brought the Alpine and Ballast Point products North. To Ralph for making it all all a possible and remembering to add the Nelson to the list. To Rick and Bob for manning the cellar. And to Pat McIlhenney at Alpine who always responded to my emails so that we could finally include the Alpine beers in a head to head event with Russian River. And to Vinnie at RR for his state of the art hop legends. And of course Scott at Rubicon for allowing some Hop Sauce to leave Sacramento, and to Brian Ford for all that he always does for us and our local beer scene.

A big tip of the hop cap has to go out to foodies Tracy, Lisa, Jose and Todd for keeping our hunger at bay. Those jalapeno creations were particularly outstanding. And especially to all my friends (or people that somehow manage to put up with me) for attending and making it all great times.

So ya... I'm extremely fortunate that I have 30+ interested and beer knowledgeable friends to gather up and put on such a fun event. Friends that include commercial and home brewers, BJCP beer judges/writers and dedicated beer enthusiasts. I recommend that you make the effort to pick a beer style..... or a particular regions or breweries or whatever criteria that appeals to you and create your own Saturday night showdown. Because in the end with or without all the fancy names and titles all you really need are beer enthusiasts, a rough plan and of course good craft beers to evaluate and enjoy. The road trips for beer collecting should never be underestimated either and can easily be as much fun as the event itself.

Personally I can't wait to do it all again.

(*Sierra Organization of Beer Enthusiast Recruiters)

Pliny the Younger

Considering the amount of time that Russian River's Pliny the Younger spends on tap I believe it to be aptly named. Nobody is getting old waiting for any keg of "The Younger" to become an empty casualty of thirsty hop heads dreams. This years batch proved that theory in the extreme.
I had entertained ideas of taking a day off of work on Friday February 6th to be present for the release of Vinnie's greatest Hop creation at the brewery/pub in Santa Rosa but after hearing the reports of people who were there I was happy to instead be slaving away in my fishbowl cubicle in Roseville.
The past few years the Younger's first appearance was always at The Bistro Double IPA Fest in Hayward. For some reason Vinnie and Natalie decided to mix things up and do a release party the day prior. My assumption was that the $36 price tag to fill a growler was to discourage a massive exodus of Younger from the Pub thus keeping the popular beer available on site for as long as possible.
It didn't work. The line of people and growlers twisted halfway down the block and the pub ran out of Younger that same day. I know several people that were eyewitnesses to the madness and they all told the same stories of over crowding, long waits for a beer and standing in lines.
Fortunately for me a thoughtful friend offered to take my growlers along with him that day and I scored two growlers without having to battle the thirsty hordes.
I wish I had a dozen.
The following weekend I was back in the East Bay and hoping that I would get lucky enough to find some Younger still on tap somewhere. (admittedly I did manage a three ounce sample at the Bistro 2IPA fest)
The first story I heard was The Dublin Sports Pub tapped a keg that lasted the last 4 business hours of one day and was drained the next day before closing.
My next clue came from a text message ....a keg at Toronado barely lasted a half and hour.
We stopped by 1st Street Ale House in Livermore. They had a keg but it didn't make it throught two business days.
Oh my this beer is popular. Not a bad problem to have if your in business to sell beer....and Vinnie has this problem big time. He can't make enough beer to satisfy the demand.
We finally did track some Younger down at the HopYard in San Ramon.
I got to do a head to head tasting with Blind Pig, Pliny the Elder and Pliny the Younger. What a treat. And we returned the next day to repeat the dream line up.
I know by the time I write this the Younger is long gone from most everywhere.
Obviously it's a fabulous creation and I highly recommend it...er I mean...no dammit...it sucks...you don't want it.... avoid it at all costs...it's too hoppy and expensive for you.
Please leavve the heavy lifting to me.....I'm a professional. Do not try this at home....images in your mirror are larger than they appear.......

Finally a really Super Bowl/Dublin Sports Pub

Like most Americans I've been watching the Super Bowl for a great many years and frankly the game is more often than not anything but Super. This year was a welcomed exception. Both teams went deep into the regular season undefeated and were worthy franchises with exceptional and likable quarterbacks bent on carrying their respective teams to that elusive and highly coveted Super Bowl Title. You all know the story's....including the New Orleans Katrina angle and Peyton Manning growing up with a father struggling thru a frustrating career with one of the leagues sorriest teams in N'olins. OK ya....all that was cool ....and The Saints winning was just even more icing on the Cake.

Scheduling The Bistro's Double IPA festival on Super Bowl weekend was in on one hand brilliant and on another just freakin insane. I really have to give a shout out to my liver for carrying me through the entire affair....including a weekend that actually started on Friday with an afternoon spent on the back patio of Livermore's First Street Ale House drinking Paulaner Hefeweizen, Pliny the Elder and Old Rasputin.


Still recovering from the epic Imperial IPA event on Saturday we started a bit slowly on Sunday. We actually waited until nearly 2pm to have our first brew. We planned to watch the event from the friendly confines of The Dublin Sports Pub so we figured since we couldn't seem to get a proper reservation we better just show up early and see what we could get. Good thing we did because that place was rockin.

With something in the neighborhood of 50 taps, a full menu and too many to count flat screen TV's the PSP seemed like just the spot for the 12 of us. Did I mention they had 7 IPA's on tap?

We started off a bit slow but soon Rick was got hip to the beer bongs...ordering several of Russian River Blind Pig and Green Flash West Coast IPA. The bongs hold 11 pints of beer but they weren't lasting too long at our thirsty table.
I also squeezed in a blackened cajun chicken sandwich that was outstanding. My Mom had a French Dip sandwich that looked very tasty and when she offered me half of it I really had to dig deep into my resolve to decline it. After all there were plenty more pints on my schedule that were just not going to drink themselves.
My beverage of the weekend was the North Coast Old Rasputin on the nitro tap. Remarkable beer...so smooth, tasty, easy drinking and utterly dangerous in the 10% abv range.
The whole Dublin/Pleasanton/San Ramon/Livermore area has several excellent craft Brew pubs and the Dublin Sports Pub is certainly near the top of the list. Highly recommended.

10th Annual Double IPA Fest

For the 10th year in a row The Bistro owner Vic Kralj closed the streets of Hayward California to bring thirsty Northern California Hop Heads a powerful collection of the elixirs they crave. Well, OK actually it's only one street but if you were there you know what an unparalleled and astonishing street it can be.

No less than 58 Imperial IPA's from across the land kicking off the second annual San Francisco Beer Week.

The announced winners, from the so called 'Professional Judging' (who are these guys anyway?)

Gold Medal - Pizza Port - Welcome Back Wipeout

Silver Medal - Rubicon - Hop Sauce

Bronze Medal - Triple Rock - IIMAXX Imperial IPA

Peoples choice Award - Russian River - Pliny the Younger

The three winners scored high marks on my sip card and all finished in my top ten. I must admit to being especially happy to see Scott from Rubicon get some recognition for his excellent revamped Hop Sauce recipe. We've been making regular pilgrimages lately down to Capital and 20th Street in Sacramento ever since it was released.

Reviewing my own abused judging sheet from the event I find that I have notes from everything I tried and of course my own list of favorites.

The Hop Hunters Bistro Imperial IPA winners list if you will. (I know it's a time of the Winter Olympics and all but I will dispense with the Medal ceremony and just list them alphabetically and roughly as I scored them).

Top Group

21st Amendment - Hop Crisis - I look forward to this beer every year. Clean..perfectly unbalanced with excellent Hop flavors and aroma.

Bear Republic - 11 - A favorite brewery of mine... I didn't get around to sampling the 11 until my 21st sample and still it earned the star of superior recognition.

Breakwater Brewing - Mavericks DIPA - All I know is that BWB is from Oceanside, undoubtedly on my list to visit on my next San Diego trip.

Green Flash - Pallet Wrecker - Another yearly favorite of mine. Properly named and even stands out in this group.

Kern River - Kern River Double - I like their 'Just Outstanding IPA' and their Double carries on that tradition. Excellent....I actually sampled it three separate occasions.

Port Brewing - Mongo IPA - My only comment was my star of excellence and 'nice' ...but I went back twice so that's a clue. I preferred it slightly to it's gold medal winning brother.

Rubicon - Hop Sauce - Once again ... just excellent.... a Sacramento treasure.

Group Two

Drakes - Hopocalypse

Fat Heads - Hop Juju - One of the best from our Eastern friends (Cleveland).

Moylans - Hopsickle Imperial XXX IPA - Always a favorite

Pizza Port - Welcome Back Wipeout - Very good...love to have this at my local pub.

Speakeasy - Speakeasy IIIPA - Solid offering

Triple Rock - IIMAXX Imperial IPA - Could be in the first group. Another yearly favorite.

Honorable Mentions:

Auburn AleHouse - PU240 - I list this because I know this to be a great beer from a gifted local brewer despite the fact that the keg at the Bistro seemed to be possibly mishandled and poured uncharacteristically cloudy and just weird.

Bear Republic - Five Zero

Deschutes - Hop Henge - Always recommended

Firestone Walker - Double Jack - Ditto

Lagunitas - Hop Stupid - Another staple in my fridge

Mad River Brewing - Steelhead Double

Russian River - Pliny the Elder - Truly the Elder in every sense

Strange and/or not favored:

Anderson Valley - 20th Anniversary Imp IPA - No

Blue Frog - The Big DIPA #3 - Good brewery generally just never been a fan of the DIPA

Flying Dog - Double Dog - Prefer the bottle version

Glacier Brewhouse - Double IPA - Unremarkable
Grand Teton - Lost Continent - More malt but where's the hops?

Lagunitas - Hop Porno - Love the name ... but too sweet.

Magnolia - Promised Land IPA - Not the correct name

Marin - White Knuckle - Unremarkable ... bottle version superior

New Belgium - Ranger IPA - No business being in this event.

Ninkasi - Tricerahops Double - Weird

Seabright - Double Wipe - Single Wide?

ShipYard - XXXXIPA - No Way.

Sierra Nevada - Hoptimum - Love the brewery...too much malt in this offering

Valley - Uberhoppy - Usually a favorite ... not this year

Widmer - Dead Lift - Just wrong.....My comment was censored.

Of course there were other beers I failed to mention, and I'm sure opinions will vary greatly from mine but that's half the fun. Of course a lot of the fun for me this year was being at the event with family and friends, including the new faces of my Mom Lola and her driver Hoke, er uh ... I mean Ralph (an over due returnee to the event) and my sister J.D. and her husband Dan. Of course Zack, Oralia and Kevin made their yearly appearance as did Rick and Tracy who got put to work pouring. The price they paid for being special and world famous beer folks.

At an event of this magnitude there just isn't a bad seat in the house.

Thanks to my sons

Although I know all four of my regular readers are used to annoyingly long pauses in my postings......this time I have a legitimate reason for it. My computer has been down and out. Fortunately for me I have a couple of whiz kids that have helped me get back up and running again. Cody helped with some RAM increase and a much overdue cleaning. Zack wiped the hard drive, upgraded the video card and installed Windows 7.
So now once again I can charge along in my usual inconsistently and haphazardly way forgetting to report on interesting beer events and botching others with my weird, confusing and brief descriptions and tales. Ahhhhh......the good old days.
Kidding never aside I do have a few new events to report. So look for them as time goes on... maybe geologic time....but time none the less.
There is the Bistro Double IPA Event, Mom's Superbowl party, and the Pliny the Younger release. Not to mention Sacramento Beer week and Odonata Brewing.

Bootleggers Brewery

Far far South of our home in Northern California there is a land widely known as the OC...and neatly tucked away in this land is a brewery with the obvious yet clever name of Bootleggers Brewery. Despite it's location smack dab in the middle of this massive swath of humanity BB is a bit off the well beaten path behind some old neighborhoods in a small industrial park backed up against the metro tracks.

Finding it wasn't that difficult.... it's just one of those breweries that you can barely believe really exists where you are nonetheless expecting to find it.

It's also one of those little gems of a place you are just happy as hell you spent the time and made the effort to seek out. Brewer/Owner Aaron Barkenhagen was on hand when we arrived and patiently answered all of my typical beer geek questions while patiently supplying us with an endless supply of tasty 2oz samples. My first sample from their extensive lineup was their Old World Hefeweizen which utilized traditional Bavarian yeast strains and just oozed clove and banana attributes. I immediately started my shopping by setting aside three 22oz bottles for the trip home. Next up was Golden Chaos a Belgian style Golden Ale ..... a nice crisp representation of the style and I couldn't stop with one sample.

I tried the Palomino American Pale Ale next. Once again...very well done version of a standard style .....and like all their beers I tried...very well crafted...fresh crisp and tasty.

I was already growing tired of the 2oz sample limitation but Aaron explained to me that in a couple of weeks their licence was scheduled to be adapted to allow full pint pours.

Due to the Brewery rapidly filling up with happy local patrons and their empty growlers I was unable to learn the name of the Plum beer they were all of a sudden sharing from their cold storage..but I did manage a taste and it was excellent. Obviously another Belgian style...most likely a double.....big and hearty with perfect Plum undertones and a controlled sweetness.

Perhaps the most interesting beer on the menu was the Black Phoenix.... a coffee and Chipotle Stout! The chipotle came through late in the finish and added a delightful little smokey kick.

Of course the entire time I was running through the house samples my beautiful wife Terri was jumping back and forth between their two Ipa's on tap.....trying to figure out which one to put in growlers for the trip home.

Her eventual favorite, as well as mine and daughter in law Oralia's, was a contract brew they did called Director's Cut IPA. I never learned who they brewed it for but I soon just humorously assumed it was for our visit and had them fill us up three growlers. The aroma told tales of Simco and Amarillo and Brewer Aaron assured me there was also some Columbus hops in there somewhere as well. Light in color and body it had a bit of a grassy finish but was just what the doctor ordered.

The other IPA was the one I'd read about and eventually got me radared in on Bootleggers in the first place... Rustic Rye IPA. The Rustic offered a more balanced and maltier profile than the Director's Cut .... finishing clean with a very pleasing hop and rye interplay. I added some bottles to my growing shopping cart.

Bootleggers also offers an German Alt style beer called Amber that I somehow failed to try. As well as a few other seasonals that you'll just have to show up to sample.

If you happen to live in Orange County, Fullerton, or the greater LA/So-Cal area you owe yourself a visit to 401 S. Richmond Avenue, Fullerton CA 92832. They even offer a growler club deal. Fill five growlers and the sixth one comes for just a buck.

Be there....or just go thirsty.

A fun tribute

The evening of my fathers Memorial Service I decided that we really needed to do some kind of tribute to the old man. One befitting the ole gun slingers love of all things guns. A tribute aside from our consistent daily attempts at filling an entire recycle trash can with green and brown 12 oz containers.

The first couple of nights in town I slept in his gun room and every morning the first thing I'd see when I woke up (well, besides my beautiful bride of course) was an old can of black powder sitting on his book shelf next to one of his quick draw trophies and an old bayonet that he must have picked up at some gun show or found out in the desert.

At dusk I grabbed that can off the shelf...found his stash of other reloading powder to use for a fuse and set out to make a mushroom cloud in the street in front of the house. The fuse material proved to be a bit slower burning than I'd anticipated but that turned out to be a good thing as camera operators and the saluting toasts of the bystanders weren't quite as ready as they thought they were. We also burned up a few boxes of some old sparklers I found whilst looking for his powder supply. Judging by the age of the sparklers I think the old man must have gotten them from Poncho Villa.
After much anticipation the half pound conical tower of black powder did it's thing, mildly surprised a few skeptics and bringing a smile to everyone's face.

"That's gonna leave a mark" which just like my Dad ..... was an understatement.