From the Beer Writer: It’s been an honor and a privilege to work with local breweries to develop charity beers as part of the Beer to the Rescue campaign supporting the Lupus Foundation of Southern California. One of the first brewers to get involved was Alex Van Horne from Intergalactic Brewing Company. A cousin of his suffers from lupus, so he was excited to have the chance to make a difference. Like many participating brewers, his first idea was to craft something hoppy in order to do some wordplay with lupus and lupulin, the resinous substance in hops that gives them their bitterness and aromatic character. In the end, we went a completely different direction. My favorite Intergalactic beer has always been Astro, a Scottish ale that’s all about malt. Van Horne was toying with the idea of creating a version that would be higher in alcohol and more complex on the palate, which sounded pretty incredible to me. That beer is now on tap at Intergalactic’s tasting room (9835 Carroll Centre Road, #108, Miramar), with a portion of proceeds from its sale flowing directly to the LFSC.
From the Brewer: “Astral Scottish Export Ale is a heavier and maltier take on our award-winning Scottish amber ale, Astro. We use six different malts and East Kent Golding hops to create a complex malt profile with enough English hop character to balance its sweetness. We then add molasses and vanilla during fermentation to provide sugar complexity, depth and a dessert-like quality to this 7.8% alcohol-by-volume ale. The result is a smooth-drinking, malt-forward and unique interpretation on a classic Scottish-style ale that’s full of toffee, biscuit, caramel, molasses and vanilla flavors with some nutty, smoky notes.” —Alex Van Horne, Owner & Brewmaster, Intergalactic Brewing Company