Serious Winter Stouts And Hazy Pale Ales

American Craft Beer|February 2nd, 2021|

(Courtesy Great Divide Brewing)

These are no longer normal times…So why drink something normal especially in 2021?

Titanic Beer News (Denver, CO) – Great Divide Brewing has updated the look and taste of a flagship IPA that debuted in 2004. In addition to the Centennial and Amarillo hops that Great Divide Titan IPA has always featured, the new formula will include Simcoe, Mosaic and Citra. And alhough its bitterness has been decreased, its pine and citrus notes remain, along with welcome hints of stone fruit.

“Tastes change,” explained Great Divide founder and president, Brian Dunn. “Today’s beer drinker is not necessarily looking for hop bitterness to be the predominant sensory experience in an IPA. We felt it was time to bring the bitterness of Titan down while highlighting flavors that have come to define a contemporary American IPA. We’ve made a version of Titan that will please the purists and also appeal to modern IPA drinkers.”

Barrel-Aged Black Is Beautiful (Astoria, OR) – The Black is Beautiful project launched by Weathered Souls Brewing helped raise awareness about racial injustice in this country, and raised funds for organizations that support the Black community.

And Fort George and Buoy Beer took a portion of the 10% ABV Imperial Stout brewed last year and aged it in local whiskey barrels from Adrift Distillery and Pilot House Distilling, then conditioned it on more freshly roasted coffee beans from Columbia River Coffee Roasters, right before bottling. 100% of the proceeds from this beer will go to Black Resilience.

Opaque Brewing (Columbus, OH) – BrewDog USA is continuing to do very cool things. Like its flagship New England IPA, uniquely brewed in Ohio. Crafted with oats and wheat and dry-hopped for a full-tilt fruit blast, BrewDog Hazy Jane is a 7.2% ABV juice-bomb with bright pineapple, mango and zesty lime notes that is low on bitterness, high on haze and hopped out of its mind.

Hazy Plays (San Diego, CA) – AleSmith Brewing has a new addition to its year-round portfolio that taps into the nation’s reining sub-style. So rich in hazy content that it had to be “downloaded from the cloud” AleSmith Cloud Stream Hazy IPA is a 6.9% ABV full-bodied India Pale Ale with dazzling red currant, passionfruit and mango notes, and a lingering creamy mouthfeel.