An avid homebrewer and former employee at Stone Brewing Co. in Southern California, where he worked in the communications department, Jacob Mckean founded Modern Times Beer in the Point Loma neighborhood of San Diego in 2013. For the first year Modern Times didn’t brew an IPA — and when they finally did, it wasn’t a West Coast hop bomb that helped put the San Diego beer scene on the map. Today, the brewery has a stable of year-round offerings, monthly special releases and rotating seasonal beers, as well as tons of special release and one-off batches — from hazy IPAs, to barrel-aged sours, to decadent imperial stouts. From their modern taprooms and beautifully designed cans to their sleek and minimalistic website, Modern Times approaches things in a, well, modern way. Even all the employees have hip nicknames — employees who happen to own 30 percent of the brewery. Today, Peaks and Pints presents a flight of 100 percent Modern Times we call Craft Beer Crosscut 10.24.18: A Flight of Modern Times Beer.
Craft Beer Crosscut 10.24.18: A Flight of Modern Times Beer
Modern Times Lutari
6.5% ABV, 10 IBU
Named for a mystical island of adorable virtual pets, this sublimely refreshing Berliner weisse handily lives up to its magical moniker. Modern Times loaded the tart base beer with a boatload of mangos, guavas and apricots for a lovely, bright lemon zesty tart aroma with a touch of guava and grains of paradise. The magic continues on the tongue with a cool, crisp mellow flavor that’s not very acidic but has a nice fruity tartness with lemon zest, papaya and a touch of lychee.
Modern Times Fruitland (Passion Fruit & Guava) Gose
4.8% ABV, 17 IBU
Modern Times’ Fruitlands series sports the same sour, salty base beer. From there, the brewery adds fruit to give the gose a distinctive flavor. The Passion Fruit/Guava version pours from our Western red cedar tap log today. The passionfruit and guava gives it a tropical flavor that pairs nicely with the base beer, making the brew taste something more akin to a nice fruity punch than a beer, although certainly not as sweet. Passionfruit is definitely the star with this one, but you get a little bit of guava as well, especially on the nose.
Modern Times Membata
7.75% ABV, 30 IBU
The Modern Times folks are so into coffee that they’re not only roasting coffee in their brewhouse for their beers, but also roasting coffee for coffee’s sake. Individual bags of the Modern Times Black House blend, rotating single-origins and barrel-aged coffees are for sale, and cold brew coffee is on its way. Modern Times doses the silky, chocolaty Membata stout with generous amounts of its house-roasted coffee, yielding an opaque, jet black color that unleashes rich chocolate, roast malt and earthy coffee flavors with medium hop bitterness and a dry finish.
Modern Times Dymaxion
5.5% ABV, 40 IBU
Modern Times scored a bunch of Grade A Nelson Sauvin hops. We’re talking the good stuff. Peaks and Pints knows. Modern Times came clean with the Nelson for our Aroma of Tacoma hazy IPA we brewed at Three Magnets Brewing. Thanks Modern Times! Nelson is front and center in the Dymaxion hazy pale ale with various New Zealand hops along for the ride. With 2-Row, white wheat and golden naked oats leading the grain bill, Dymaxion yields an intensely aromatic profile that marries a bouquet of tropical characteristics with crisp, biting citrus over a dry malt backbone.
Modern Times Blazing World
6.8% ABV, 85 IBU
Modern Times specializes in mashups, blending together different styles and flavors. Blazing World is an aggressively hoppy brew that shares characteristics with both imperial IPAs and amber ales. Nelson Sauvin, Mosaic and Simcoe hops give it a dank aroma packed with white grapes, mango and grapefruit peel, while the flavor blends burnt sugar, biscuits and grass.
LINK: Craft Beer Crosscut archives
