From the Beer Writer: I remember them when they were just two really great homebrewers. OK, that’s an understatement. Paul Sangster and Guy Shobe were more than great. One of them was named the best homebrewer in the country in 2011, for crying out loud. Then they banded together to go pro with their San Marcos-based Rip Current Brewing Company, which has since spawned a really cool satellite tasting room on 30th Street in North Park. But even more has happened since then to bolster the already-stellar reputations of these fermentationists. Last month, Rip Current was named the Best Very Small Brewery of the Year at the Great American Beer Festival, the country’s most prestigious brewing competition. That award came after Sangster’s and Shobe’s German-style bock and Scotch ale (a bourbon barrel-aged version of the latter recently went up for sale online) won a gold and silver medal, respectively. Still, the duo remains down-to-earth and simply proud to have four active hands in helping San Diego County maintain its status as a top-notch brewing region. Part of the way they do that is by giving back to the community. This beer, a rye-infused imperial red with plenty of hop presence on the nose and palate, was brewed to support a charity benefiting the Lupus Foundation of Southern California.
From the Brewer: “Deep Crimson Imperial Rye Red is Rip Current’s contribution to the Beer to the Rescue campaign to further research in lupus. We thought an imperial-sized red-colored beer which featured complex hop aromas and flavors plus background spice-like notes from the rye would be something not often seen in San Diego. The malt portion of the recipe was constructed to target a dark amber color and achieve roughly mid-eight percent alcohol-by-volume. This required use of darker Crystal malts that impart the desired color in the beer plus provide a rich, complex, caramel-like background flavor. The base malts are varieties of Pale malted barley from both the U.S. and England, and they provide a bready, toasty foundation for the beer. Thirteen percent of the grains were Cararye malt to provide the rye character and add color for the beer. Finally, we used several specialty malts to increase the malt complexity. On the hop side, we were anxious to hit this beer hard enough that the hops would shine through the significant malt backbone. To provide complex citrus- and pine-like hop aroma and flavor, we added Citra, Simcoe and Amarillo hops late in the boil, and the same hops again after fermentation—dry-hopping—for extra aroma.—Paul Sangster, Brewmaster, Rip Current Brewing Co.