What’s a Great Food Pairing for this beer?
This type of beer can pair with any number of dishes, but I think a Spaghetti Carbonara would be spot on. The Lemon cuts through the richness of the dish, and the Wheat amplifies the breadiness of the pasta.

Why is the brew team excited about this beer?
Citrus spiked Wheat Beers are summer crushers, with just enough to pique interest without getting in the way of drinkability.

Are there any special ingredients used in this beer?
Lemon True Citrus is a crystallized powder that captures the oils and juice of the fruit. It delivers the citrus bite of juice, but also the floral aromas that alert your brain to the sensation of smelling fresh fruit, all without watering the beer down.

Can you share any interesting historical or cultural background about this style of beer?
This beer is a nod to the citrus garnish that traditionally accompanies a Belgian Wit (which is a Lemon, not an Orange!), but with the clean base of an American Wheat beer.

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TASTING NOTES

Visual: Straw hue with fluffy white foam. Brilliantly clear.

Aroma: Lemon peel, bread dough, with low fruity yeast notes in the background.

Taste/Flavors: Lightly sweet up front, low supporting bitterness.

Mouthfeel: Medium-low body, lightly drying finish.

What’s a Great Food Pairing for this beer?
This would pair very well with a salad containing citrus or a super fresh tomato sandwich. Keep it light and refreshing.

Why is the brew team excited about this beer?
The way this beer is brewed is very unique. The majority of the aroma is derived from yeast rather than from hops. While we do add Mosaic and El Dorado on the hot side, this beer is not dry hopped.

Are there any special ingredients used in this beer?
This beer is brewed with Berkeley Yeast Vermont Tropics strain and we also add Berkeley’s Thiol Boost. This yeast strain has been altered to be able to free bound thiols. This creates intense aromas of grapefruit, guava, and passionfruit.

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TASTING NOTES

Visual: Golden in color. Bright with a white head

Aroma: Grapefruit, citrus, guava, and passionfruit

Taste/Flavors: Low sweet and medium bitterness

Mouthfeel: Medium-low body, medium carbonation, low alcohol

What’s a Great Food Pairing for this beer?
This style works really well traditionally with tubular meats, but due to the reduced abv in this example I would recommend pairing with something a little bit lighter like fish or oysters.

Why is the brew team excited about this beer?
This is one of my favorite styles to drink. It has great malt flavor with a really balanced hop aroma and bitterness but dialed back to 3.8% you can drink this all day long.

Are there any special ingredients used in this beer?
This is brewed with Weyermann Floor-Malted Bohemian Pilsner Malt and Czech Saaz hops. The floor-malted pilsner has an incredible malt depth of flavor that contributes perfectly to this style.

Can you share any interesting historical or cultural background about this style of beer?
Here’s a great article on the historical importance of the style

Bohemian Pilsner, a beer style that retains closer links to the origins of the “pilsner family” of lager beer styles than any other type. The town of Pilsen (Plzeň in Czech) is the capital of Czech Bohemia, and it is here that Bavarian brewer Josef Groll brewed the original pilsner beer in 1842. That brewery is now called Plzeňský Prazdroj, better known as Pilsner Urquell, which means original source. However, within the Czech Republic, only beer from Pilsen is called pilsner, even when it is brewed in the same style. For the Czechs, pilsner is essentially an appellation contrôlée, and German brewers respect this by calling their similar beers by the truncated name “pils.” To the rest of the world, Czech beers such as Staropramen, Gambrinus, Krusovice, and Budweiser Budvar represent a style called Bohemian or Czech pilsner.

Eventually, the German pilsner brewers refined their pils beers into a style that became distinct from the Bohemian originals. They are very much lager beers, cold-fermented and aged for up to 90 days. Whereas German pilsners eventually became paler, reaching for a bright yellow color, the Czech beers are deep gold, sometimes even showing hints of red, although the brewing grists are invariably 100% pilsner malt. Part of this is caused by differing malts and water, and some of it may be caused by darkening of the wort by oxidation in open grants as the wort runs from the lauter tuns. Decoction mashing remains common in the Czech breweries, and this may have a darkening effect as well, also perhaps bringing a deepening of malt flavors. Hops tend to be the local floral Saaz variety and they are used more assertively. Whereas the average German pilsner today has a bitterness of 28 International Bitterness Units (IBUs), the Czech pilsners are usually closer to 35 IBU, making them notably snappier. Balanced against this is a bit more malt sweetness, a slightly toastier malt flavor, and sometimes even a small whiff of diacetyl, a buttery-tasting compound created by yeast and aggressively opposed by most lager brewers. Altogether these qualities make the Bohemian pilsner a more full-bodied version of the style than the German one, and some beer festival competitions separate the two into their own categories.

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TASTING NOTES

Visual: Straw Golden, brilliantly bright with a dense white head

Aroma: Sweet malt, toasted bread, and biscuit with a medium noble hop aroma (herbal and light citrus)

Taste/Flavors: Medium-low sweet and medium bitterness

Mouthfeel: Medium body, medium carbonation, low alcohol

What’s a Great Food Pairing for this beer?
BBQ! No particular vendors are endorsed, but those partial to Jerk Chicken will not be disappointed…

Why is the brew team excited about this beer?
Session IPA’s (or good ones anyway) have all the flavor impact of an Imperial Pale Ale in a satiating, lower abv package. 

Are there any special ingredients used in this beer?
The hops feature heavyweights Simcoe and Mosaic, showcasing a lot of bright citrus and underlying tropical flavors. But it’s the specialty malts (Vienna, Dextrin, and Carahell) that keep the beer from seeming watery and grassy.

Is there anything unusual or exciting about brewing this particular style?
Session IPA got a bad name when some brewers tried to just make their same IPA with less malt, resulting in thin, bitter, vegetal messes. The challenge is in maintaining enough malt body in the beer while keeping the spotlight firmly on the hop aromatics.

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TASTING NOTES

Visual: Clear, pale gold with white foam.

Aroma: Blend of citrus (grapefruit, orange, lemon) with low supporting tropical notes (pineapple, banana). Lightly dank with a bit of peppery spice.

Taste/Flavors: Lightly sweet with a clean, medium bitterness.

Mouthfeel: Medium-low body, clean finish.