From the Beer Writer: I’m a fan of anniversary beers. Making it in the beer business is getting more difficult by the year, thus upping the significance of such a feat on an annual basis. On top of that, breweries tend to bring out their best ingredients and go big on flavor. You’ll seldom see a helles lager or extra special bitter rolled out for an anniversary party. Brewers like to go big, a tendency driven home by 5 Year Anniversary, a new beer (you’ll never guess what it celebrates) from Vista’s Booze Brothers Brewing. Not only is this double IPA crystal clear and drinkable as the day (year?) is long at just 8.5% alcohol-by-volume, it’s also stocked with a who’s who of en vogue hops. Mosaic, Simcoe, Amarillo, Galaxy…they’re all there! And they play remarkably well together. Tangerine in the nose segues to clementine, pineapple, apricot and grapefruit rind on the taste buds. It’s a fitting beverage to commemorate a half-decade of successful brewing that’s currently available on-tap and in four-packs of 12-ounce cans.
From the Brewer: “When approaching the question of what we want to brew next, we typically ask ourselves what we feel like drinking. In the case of this beer, it was approaching winter, so we thought we’d brew something a bit higher in alcohol to ward off those winter blues from our endless summer and total lack of seasons. No one at our brewery likes feeling full after one pint, so we decided to brew an IPA, dry it out and leave room for the hops to shine. We felt like making a decently bitter beer with tropical notes, citrus and perhaps a touch of pine, so we loaded the beer up with Galaxy, Amarillo, Mosaic and Simcoe hops over several sessions of dry-hopping. The result is our fifth-year anniversary beer, which, although we brewed it for ourselves, I guess we’ll go ahead and share some of it with you.”—Donny Firth, Co-owner & Brewmaster, Booze Brothers Brewing