With help from Green Flash Brewing Co. and its sister brewery, Alpine Beer Co., Dr. Hoppy Dankenstein has isolated himself from his family, friends and colleagues. Unknown to them, what Dr. Dankenstein intends to host with Green Flash and Alpine is a night of the stickiest of the icky, the dankest of the dank, the bombest of the bomb-diggity. Dankenstein scoured the two southern California brewery’s cold storage for the most face-meltingly awesome hoppy beers, with the goal of showcasing eight of them at Peaks and Pints Halloween night. We chose five of them for today’s beer flight Craft Beer Crosscut 10.31.17: A Flight of Dankenstein.
Alpine Windows UP IPA
7% ABV, 41 IBU
After Green Flash Brewing’s lupulin lab grabbed the production reigns of several Alpine beers, the mad IPA scientists brewed even more amazing hopped-up masterpieces such as Hop Boxed, which was Alpine’s Duet’s malt bill, but instead of Simcoe and Amarillo hops, scientists used Citra and Mosaic. Alpine changed the name of Hop Boxed to Windows Up, but the mix of Citra and Mosaic still hold the window up for a soft and bitter room. Alpine describes it as falling squarely under the “dank” category. The dank base is complementary to the bitterness instead of balancing with a counterpunch. Windows Up is an IPA of two profiles that truly meets in the middle. With an aromatic floral and orange nose, the flavor begins soft on the mouth with a green meets papaya-citrus wash over the tongue that breaks away in a piney punch that leads to a bitter finish.
Alpine Duet IPA
7% ABV, 45 IBU
Simcoe and Amarillo. Not a buddy-buddy cop movie but rather the only two hops in Alpine Beer’s Duet IPA. On the nose, Duet’s namesake is beautifully displayed as you can pick out the big contributions from the hop duet right away. Big-time nectarines, mangoes, pineapple, with mild undertones of citrus, likely from the Amarillo, with the wet, dank, pungent and piney side from the Simcoe. They form a beautifully harmonious union with the tropical explosion versus the raw, dank hoppage. Duet is a tropicpalooza in the middle of an oily, hemp jungle.
Alpine Hoppy Birthday
5.25% ABV, 60 IBU
According to Alpine Beer, Hoppy Birthday is known as “The world’s most celebrated beer.” It is a gift, with six different hops link to excite the nose with varying aromas of dank cannabis, pine needles, mint and freshly picked oregano that leads into flavors of weed and pithy citrus peel. The IBU level is high for the style, but misleading — though packed with hop flavor, this beer doesn’t really bite you back, but instead has well-paced bitterness.
Green Flash West Coast IPA
8.1% ABV, 95 IBU
So much of the good, green stuff is packed into Green Flash’s West Coast IPA that you’ll find it overwhelming if you haven’t prepared yourself. Imagine licking a pine sapling on a spring day in a grassy meadow with your friend blowing weed smoke in your face. Seriously, West Coast is a bit like cramming fistfuls of freshly mowed grass into your gob due to a “menagerie of hops” layered throughout the brewing process including Simcoe (to impart a unique fruitiness and grapefruit zest), Columbus (for strong hop pungency), Centennial (for pine and citrus notes), and Cascade (for floral aroma). As the brewery puts it, it is a “multi-dimensional hop experience.” And they ain’t lying. It’s just over 8 percent ABV, with a malt body, resinous, hoppy and dank.
Green Flash Imperial IPA
9% ABV, 101 IBU
A longtime favorite of hopheads across the country, Green Flash’s Imperial IPA clocks in at 9 percent ABV, reaches a whopping 101 IBUs and is considered by many to be imperial IPA drinking at its finest. And though it’s definitely a big beer, it doesn’t overwhelm, instead finding a foothold in the subtleties of each sip — citrus and dank hops on the nose, a hint of pine needles here, a bit of fresh grapefruit there, leafy green bitterness everywhere — and the nuances go on and on.
