From the Beer Writer: Every time I find myself strolling the beer aisle of a local grocery store, I marvel at the amount of fruit-flavored beers in the mainstream market, many of which are manufactured using extracts. It’s obvious the demand is there, but it can be tough to find all-natural options, partly because brewing with real fruit is more costly, more complicated, and more labor-intensive. Because of that, the process is far better suited to small breweries like Nickel Beer Company, an operation carved into an old jailhouse in Julian. Every week you can find owner and brewmaster Tom Nickel hunched over buckets of local grapefruit, zesting and juicing one after another to get enough flavorful raw ingredient for Nickel Grapefruit Bighorn IPA. He’s not even a fan of fruit beers, but he knows his customers are, even folks like me who generally dislike grapefruit. The manner in which the bitter citrus comingles with the fruity bitterness of the beer’s hop bill really works, particularly when consuming this beer on Nickel’s outdoor patio on a sunny day in Julian.
From the Brewers: “I would consider myself more of a traditional brewer and not prone to adding extra flavors to beer, my one exception being an obsession with all things spicy, so I do love my pepper beers. But when I saw locally-grown grapefruit from Borrego Springs at our produce stand in Julian, I thought it seemed like a good fit to try with one of our IPAs. The intensity of the fresh grapefruit in the beer struck me immediately, and while I certainly thought it was good, I had no idea how folks—especially our local regulars—would react to it. For the time that we have had it on, it has been our most popular beer. I have now used three different IPAs as a base to blend with the Borrego grapefruit, but the Bighorn IPA is a perfect match. The beer was brewed for the Anza-Borrego Foundation‘s 50th Anniversary in April. It was made with 100% German hops, including Hallertau Blanc for finishing and dry hopping to give the beer a substantial citrus profile. It is very light in color and clocks in at a very drinkable 6.4% (alcohol-by-volume). The grapefruit is commanding in the aroma and finish but the overall impression of the IPA remains. I think my favorite comment about the beer so far comes from my mother-in-law, who said it would be an excellent breakfast beer. I wholeheartedly agree.”—Tom Nickel, Founder & Brewmaster, Nickel Beer Company