From the Beer Writer: I won’t mince words. When a craft brewery is purchased by a macro-brewery, it’s a terrible thing. However, when a craft brewery is acquired by a craft brewery, that’s a whole other deal entirely. It’s my theory that, in order to more effectively contend with desperate Big Beer breweries eating up craft entities to steal back market share, craft companies are going to need to partner together or do some buying of their own. A case for this is made by Green Flash Brewing Company’s acquisition of Alpine Beer Co. Before selling to Green Flash, Alpine’s beers were much-coveted but in scarce supply. Nowadays, Alpine beers are much easier to find and are being distributed in a real way for the first time ever. Such is the case with its extremely hoppy, 8% alcohol-by-volume double India pale ale, Alpine Pure Hoppiness, which was recently released nationwide in six-packs. Though brewed and packaged at Green Flash’s Mira Mesa facility, the bottles are still adorned with original Alpine artwork and the beer, though not exactly the same as editions brewed on Alpine’s system, is mighty fine, making a satisfying case for quality craft breweries uniting.
From the Brewer: “Pure Hoppiness was created back before there was such a thing as a Double IPA. As a progression of my early homebrewing days of recipe development, this was a real challenge to satisfy my biggest critic, my wife Val. Many predecessors were brewed with the same presentation to Val: ‘Taste this, does it taste bad to you?’ Each was met with, ‘its good, but can you make it more floral, not bitter but more hoppy?’ That’s when big late addition hops were added and eventually a hop-back along with the impressive hop bill in the dry hopping. The newest cool hop to hit the market about that time was Columbus and its hijacked versions other hop farmers were stealing from each other, Tomahawk and Zeus. Columbus combined with Cascade and Centennial, old-school workhorse hops, made up the bulk of the hop bill, both in the brewing and dry hopping. We sneak in a little Nugget to help round out the flavor and aroma and balance out the hop oil profile. We use Simpson’s Maris Otter as part of the malt base. It still stands toe-to-toe with the best double IPAs out there so…drink Pure Hoppiness or go to bed!”—Pat McIlhenney, Brewmaster, Alpine Beer Co.
From the Bottle: This mega-hopped, West Coast-style India pale ale will take you to hop heaven! We’ve used hops in the boil, more hops in the giant hopback, and added to that an incredible amount of dry-hopping for that cutting edge “hop bite.” Once you’ve tasted this unique beer, all others pale in comparison. Drink better beer so…Drink Alpine ale or go to bed!—Pat McIlhenney