{"id":19862,"date":"2018-03-09T08:00:42","date_gmt":"2018-03-09T16:00:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/archives.csusm.edu\/westcoastersd\/?p=19862"},"modified":"2018-04-17T11:33:49","modified_gmt":"2018-04-17T18:33:49","slug":"beer-of-the-week-special-lager","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archives.csusm.edu\/westcoastersd\/2018\/03\/09\/beer-of-the-week-special-lager\/","title":{"rendered":"Beer of the Week: Special Lager"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_19869\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-19869\" style=\"width: 279px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/archives.csusm.edu\/westcoastersd\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/botw_esl.jpg?ssl=1\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-19869\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/archives.csusm.edu\/westcoastersd\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/botw_esl.jpg?resize=279%2C300&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"\" width=\"279\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/archives.csusm.edu\/westcoastersd\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/botw_esl.jpg?resize=279%2C300&amp;ssl=1 279w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/archives.csusm.edu\/westcoastersd\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/botw_esl.jpg?resize=768%2C826&amp;ssl=1 768w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/archives.csusm.edu\/westcoastersd\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/botw_esl.jpg?resize=953%2C1024&amp;ssl=1 953w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/archives.csusm.edu\/westcoastersd\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/botw_esl.jpg?w=1080&amp;ssl=1 1080w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 279px) 100vw, 279px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-19869\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Special Lager from Eppig Brewing in North Park<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p><strong>From the Beer Writer:\u00a0<\/strong>The Mexican lager is in the midst of a renaissance. As craft-beer drinkers meld an enthusiast&#8217;s hunger for artisanal brews with a frat bro&#8217;s desire to pound suds in great quantity, this adjunct-fortified style has risen to prominence.\u00a0These days, it seems like just about every San Diego brewery is making a Mexican lager&#8230;and that&#8217;s exactly why\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.eppigbrewing.com\"><strong>Eppig Brewing<\/strong><\/a> isn&#8217;t. It&#8217;s not a high-and-mighty stance against adjunct lagers. They just figure if everyone&#8217;s going one direction in this arena, why not go another. Enter\u00a0<strong>Special Lager<\/strong>, a dry Japanese-style lager that, rather than utilizing corn like Mexican lagers, introduces rice into the grain bill. The result is a crisp, clean beer that goes down easy as one would expect. But what&#8217;s not status quo is the advanced flavor-level of this beer with its tantalizing lemon and mineral notes, and\u00a0the alcohol-by-volume, which comes in at a respectable 5.8% as opposed to the sub-five session strength of most adjunct lagers. That low ABV and minimal production costs are primary reasons adjunct lagers are suddenly popular again. They are highly profitable&#8230;just like the Big Beer products they&#8217;re based off of. Though most are truly craft and taste better than their AB InBev and MillerCoors progenitors, this trend smacks too much of macro-beer sensibility for yours truly. But not in the case of Special Lager. I applaud Eppig&#8217;s decision to go a more craftsman-minded route to turn out an adjunct lager that dares to have significant flavor and an ABV that inspires slower intake and intelligent contemplation versus tailgate-party over-indulgence and not much else.<\/p>\n<p><strong>From the Brewer:\u00a0<\/strong>&#8220;Eppig Special Lager has been my after-shift beer every day since we put it back on tap last week. This beer fills the void for the devout craft-beer lover who quietly shames themselves for occasionally wanting a cold, crisp (probably) macro lager on a hot day. I, too, can be guilty of this from time to time. Special Lager is a Japanese-style dry lager brewed with rice as a featured ingredient. Rice is traditionally an adjunct used in the brewing process to lighten body, which it does, but we also use it as a flavor component in this beer. The combination of pilsner malt and rice with a dose of citrusy, late-addition hops creates an aroma faintly reminiscent of sweet, starchy sushi rice and lemon blossoms. Special Lager finishes exceptional dry and clean, the perfect beer to drink outside in a beer garden. On the water, perhaps. (Brewer&#8217;s Note: We just opened our Waterfront Biergarten in Point Loma!)&#8221;<em>\u2014<\/em><em>Nathan Stephens, Principal Brewer, Eppig Brewing Company<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>From the Beer Writer:\u00a0The Mexican lager is in the midst of a renaissance. As craft-beer drinkers meld an enthusiast&#8217;s hunger for artisanal brews with a frat bro&#8217;s desire to pound suds in great quantity, this adjunct-fortified style has risen to prominence.\u00a0These days, it seems like just about every San Diego brewery is making a Mexican [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":19869,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[368,4904,369,1],"tags":[1353,625,4793,376,1461,3774,442,1794,390,4711,3030,2483,4436,4293,1962,3032,15,1652,1439,4792,1637],"class_list":{"0":"post-19862","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-beer-news","8":"category-beer-of-the-week","9":"category-beer-styles","10":"category-san-diego-beer-beverage-news","11":"tag-sdbeer","12":"tag-ab-inbev","13":"tag-adjunct-lager","14":"tag-beer","15":"tag-beer-of-the-week","16":"tag-biergarten","17":"tag-brandon-hernandez","18":"tag-brewery-igniter","19":"tag-craft-beer","20":"tag-eppig-biergarten","21":"tag-eppig-brewing","22":"tag-indiebeer","23":"tag-japanese-lager","24":"tag-mexican-lager","25":"tag-millercoors","26":"tag-nathan-stephens","27":"tag-north-park","28":"tag-point-loma","29":"tag-san-diego","30":"tag-special-lager","31":"tag-west-coaster","32":"entry"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/archives.csusm.edu\/westcoastersd\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/botw_esl.jpg?fit=1080%2C1161&ssl=1","wps_subtitle":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pdtr4y-5am","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archives.csusm.edu\/westcoastersd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19862","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archives.csusm.edu\/westcoastersd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archives.csusm.edu\/westcoastersd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archives.csusm.edu\/westcoastersd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archives.csusm.edu\/westcoastersd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19862"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/archives.csusm.edu\/westcoastersd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19862\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archives.csusm.edu\/westcoastersd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19869"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archives.csusm.edu\/westcoastersd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19862"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archives.csusm.edu\/westcoastersd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19862"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archives.csusm.edu\/westcoastersd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19862"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}