Editor’s note: Today, we’re turning our daily beer flight over to Gig Harbor resident Mitchell Lovett. The former Oskar Blues Brewery employee pulls double duty at Peaks and Pints, creating craft sandwiches in the kitchen and pouring deliciousness from our Western red cedar tap log, that is when he and his fiancée aren’t watching sci-fi on the screen, reading Bradbury and Asimov or singing karaoke at the Java Jive. Lovett has picked five beers for today’s flight, Craft Beer Crosscut 3.28.17: A Flight by Mitchell Lovett. We’ll let him take it from here. …
Oskar Blues was my first experience in the craft beer world. I got hired at age 20 shortly after being introduced to good beer by a homebrewing/beer geek friend. I worked for the poster child of terrible bosses previously and it was the first time I realized it was possible to enjoy work. I loved being a part of an industry of playful rivalry with undertones of camaraderie. Oskar Blues cared about their product and even more about their community. Since OB kind of dominated my hometown, the employees were all a big family and it was almost exclusively my social life. I also just love beer and loved getting introduced to a cornucopia of flavors I could have never previously imagined.
Craft Beer Crosscut 3.28.17: A Flight by Mitchell Lovett
E9 Brewery Farmhouse Deux
6.2% ABV
Built inside a firehouse dating back to 1907, Tacoma’s first craft brewery is a wild one. Rich in Tacoma history, E9 Brewery is constantly keeping it fresh with a focus on farmhouses, sours and barrel-aged wonders. Farmhouse Deux, aged in oak and brewed with their personal strains of Brettanomyces, captures the funk that defines this hometown treasure. Balanced and complex, inviting and memorable, the hints of hay with touches of citrus and ripe apricot make this an approachable go-to for any wild child.
Anchor Brewing Anchor Steam
4.8% ABV, 35 IBU
Opening in San Francisco in 1896, Anchor Brewing created the California Common style of beer by brewing Anchor Steam — a crisp, bready refreshing lager — in large open vats at ale (much higher) temperatures. In 1965, Fritz Maytag heard that Anchor would be closing; he toured his favorite brewery and decided to buy it. Due to Maytag’s passion for quality and for nurturing a deep connection between his employees and the ingredients they used, this turned out to be a defining moment in the history of our nation’s craft beer movement. Cheers Fritz, this one’s for you!
Dogfish Head 60 Minute IPA
6% ABV, 60 IBU
Craft beer evangelist and Dogfish Head founder Sam Calagione literally wrote the book on surviving as a microbrewery in a world of corporate giants. When Dogfish Head opened their doors in 1995, they were the smallest commercial brewery in America and the first in Delaware. Calagione even had to write and lobby the bill that permitted a brewery to exist in the state. Since then, Dogfish Head has continued to innovate beer in a myriad of ways including the invention of the continual hopping technique used in 60 Minute IPA where hops are slowly released throughout an entire hour of boiling the wort.
Oskar Blues Dale’s Pale Ale
6.5% ABV, 65 IBU
“Voluminously hopped” with Cascade, Columbus and Centennial hops, Dale’s Pale Ale is an IPA by anybody’s standard but their own. Oskar Blues’ flagship beer was the first craft beer in the United States to be distributed in a can. Oskar Blues founder Dale Katechis, ever the outdoorsman, wanted the benefits of a lightweight, all-terrain package that was infinitely recyclable to have on the go. The can revolution carried on and has now been adopted by breweries across the country.
Sierra Nevada Celebration Ale
6.8% ABV, 65 IBU
One of the earliest examples of the American IPA, this fresh-hopped, malt-forward amber beauty was born in 1981, just a year after the brewery opened. The blast of pine and citrus has become synonymous with west-coast beer and Sierra Nevada is where that staple was born. Founder Ken Grossman would drive to the hop farms in Yakima, Washington to get the otherwise unavailable hop varieties directly from the source bringing heavy hitters like Columbus into the forefront of the market. Now that is something worth celebrating.
LINK: Peaks and Pints staff picks
