New Cocktail Beers And Big India Pale Ales

(Courtesy Firestone Walker)

With Memorial Day now in the rear view mirror, summer is ON! And American craft brewers are addressing the season with intriguing new offerings you’re gonna want to have around.

Firestone Walker Debuts New Cocktail Beer (Paso Robles, CA) – As one of our favorite beer writers Cat Wolinski explained back in 2018, “There are beers, there are cocktails, and there are beer cocktails. Then, there are also beers that taste like cocktails.” And Firestone Walker just released a new cocktail beer as part of its storied Vintage Series program.

Inspired by the legendary Mezcalita cocktail, Firestone Walker Mezca-Limón is a 12.4% ABV Cocktail Beer that is was brewed with agave, chile peppers, sea salt, and aged in mezcal and orange bitters barrels, and finished with a touch of lime zest for an authentic sipping experience.

The seeds of Mezca-Limón were planted many years ago, when a friend from Mexico introduced Firestone Walker Barrel Program Manager Eric Ponce to the wonders of the Mezcalita cocktail. And so it was a dream come true when Ponce managed to procure barrels from an array of Oaxaca-based mezcal producers. In total, he acquired 80 barrels from 10 different producers. “There was an array of flavors coming off these barrels,” Ponce added, “some more earthy, some sweeter, some with minerality.”

(Courtesy Tröegs Independent Brewing)

Time To Get Nimble (Hershey, PA) – Tröegs Independent Brewing is returning one of its most anticipated once-a-year releases. A big beer that goes down easy, Tröegs Nimble Giant is a rich and deep orange 9% ABV Double IPA brimming with grapefruit, pineapple and honeysuckle notes that are offset by a sturdy backbone of pilsner and Vienna malts.

Nimble Giant came up through the brewery’s small-batch Scratch Series, starting with an experiment with Mosaic hops. After about half a dozen test batches, the Tröegs brewing team landed on a hop combination everyone loved – Mosaic, Simcoe and Azacca – and never looked back.

Mead-To-Know (Grand Rapids, MI) – Founders Brewing has a new addition to its always interesting Mothership Series that you might want to chase down. A centuries-old melding of honey and malt (think mead but with fruit), Founders Mothership Series: Blueberry Braggot is a 9% ABV limited release which is crafted using a healthy dose of 100% Michigan blueberries.

, New Cocktail Beers And Big India Pale Ales ###