From the Beer Writer: Pop culture. Try as I might to keep up on it, I’ve always been a little too off-the-grid to pick up on most of it. So it’s no surprise that I catch most popular memes, viral phenomenons and such on the later end of their lifespans. When Duck Foot Brewing released a new beer named Kookslams IPA, it didn’t resonate as anything more than a West Coast India Pale Ale. I know, I’m soooo ignorant. Eventually I learned that the Miramar-based brewery crafted the beer in collaboration with the folks behind the wildly popular Instagram account of the same name. Honestly, that I didn’t care about so much, but I’m always in the market for a quality IPA and Kookslams is just that. Toasted pine cone, peach pit and orange-candy flavors come together in a tight, dry package, making this the type of IPA you can have several of without suffering bitter-beer face or palate fatigue. I guess you could say it won’t “slam” your taste buds. But anybody who’d employ dad humor like that would likely be labelled a “kook.” The last two sentences serve as further proof I’m not cut out for the pop culture mainstream.
From the Brewer: “Way back in 2019, we had the opportunity to meet up with the folks behind the well known Instagram channel Kookslams. We immediately hit it off and realized that the Kookslams brand and the Duck Foot brand had a lot in common in terms of our target market, and just the notion of having a lot of fun and not taking ourselves too seriously. Of course our minds turned to beer. Or we were drinking beer at the time… I don’t quite remember which. We almost simultaneously realized that we should be doing some sort of collaboration together. After months of piloting some batches of beer and working up some fun art, we had the Kookslams IPA. We intentionally went with the West Coast-style IPA, being that both brands are home-based in SoCal, and the feedback from that decision has been universally positive. The final product has a pretty decent ABV (alcohol-by-volume) at 7.5% and lovely, balanced hop notes from Mosaic, Amarillo, and Mandarina Bavaria. It’s all wrapped up in a clean pilsner and two-row malt bill, and shines a nice, deep gold in the glass with a frothy white head. Only having been released in August of last year, it quickly became popular in our taprooms and is now our number one beer in cans by nearly double over number two. In fact, it’s had such a great reception that, later this month, we’re going to be launching a limited run of Double Kookslams IPA with more hop flavor and aroma, a bit more bitterness, and an ABV around 9%. That one will be available on draft but also in cans in very limited numbers. We don’t know what lies ahead for these fun collabs, or if there will be more like them, but for now we’ll keep churning out the beer and watching slam videos.”—Brett Goldstock, Chief Fermentation Officer, Duck Foot Brewing Co.