{"id":22885,"date":"2019-10-11T08:00:28","date_gmt":"2019-10-11T15:00:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/archives.csusm.edu\/westcoastersd\/?p=22885"},"modified":"2019-10-11T08:44:37","modified_gmt":"2019-10-11T15:44:37","slug":"beer-of-the-week-rival","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archives.csusm.edu\/westcoastersd\/2019\/10\/11\/beer-of-the-week-rival\/","title":{"rendered":"Beer of the Week: Rival"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

From the Beer Writer:<\/strong> I love this time of year, when German beers reign supreme, and not just the light, more one-dimensional lagers that are now popular year-round. I really enjoy German beers with substantial malt character. My favorite of those styles is altbier, and it’s become my go-to order whenever it’s available at any of Eppig Brewing<\/a><\/strong>‘s tasting rooms. Their altbier goes by the name Rival<\/strong>, and offers a lovely intermingling of dark-bread and dark-fruit notes via a lightly (stylistically) sweet, deep-crimson ale that, despite having so many layers of flavor, remains easy to drink. It’s definitely a “brewer’s beer” — the type of style that, due to its obscurity in today’s light lager- and IPA-heavy landscape, has been relegated to unfortunate obscurity. So, not surprisingly, it’s the shifter of choice for Eppig principal brewer Nathan Stephens<\/strong>, who reaches for Rival with great regularity when it’s on tap. That’s some nice justification for my often-contrarian appreciation for this underappreciated beer. To quote Jack Nicholson <\/strong>in the movie As Good As It Gets<\/em>, “The fact that I get it makes me feel good…about me.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From the Brewer:<\/strong> “Altbier is a style synonymous with the German city of D\u00fcsseldorf.\u00a0It is fermented warm like an ale, then lagered in a similar fashion to K\u00f6lsch, which is the brew of choice in the neighboring city of Cologne.\u00a0D\u00fcsseldorf and Cologne are less than 30 minutes apart by train and the name \u2018Rival\u2019 refers to the friendly competition that exists between the inhabitants of those two cities and their affinity for their respective famous and historic beer styles.\u00a0Rival is a brewed-to-style altbier, complex and malt forward in aroma with some delightful fruity notes provided by the yeast.\u00a0The rich, toasty flavor is supported with a firm noble hop bitterness to balance and it finishes clean like an altbier should.\u00a0While not generally seen in local taprooms, I feel strongly that altbier is a classic beer style that the discerning palates of the San Diego craft beer drinker could really get behind if they became more familiar with it.”\u2014Nathan Stephens, Principal Brewer & Co-owner, Eppig Brewing<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From the Beer Writer: I love this time of year, when German beers reign supreme, and not just the light, more one-dimensional lagers that are now popular year-round. I really enjoy German beers with substantial malt character. My favorite of those styles is altbier, and it’s become my go-to order whenever it’s available at any […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":22886,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","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":[4904,1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-22885","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-beer-of-the-week","8":"category-san-diego-beer-beverage-news","9":"entry"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/archives.csusm.edu\/westcoastersd\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/botw_20191011.jpg?fit=1024%2C585&ssl=1","wps_subtitle":"Eppig Brewing's \"alt\" altbier a go-to for the beermaker and beer writer","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pdtr4y-5X7","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archives.csusm.edu\/westcoastersd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22885","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=22885"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/archives.csusm.edu\/westcoastersd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22885\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archives.csusm.edu\/westcoastersd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22886"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archives.csusm.edu\/westcoastersd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22885"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archives.csusm.edu\/westcoastersd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22885"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archives.csusm.edu\/westcoastersd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22885"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}