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Beer News, Beer Releases and New Breweries

Archives for March 2021

Great Divide Brewing Co. Releases Low-Calorie, Lower-ABV Fastpack IPA

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Great Divide Brewing CompanyDENVER – Great Divide Brewing Co. is excited to release the brewery’s first widely available entry into the low-calorie, low-ABV category with Fastpack IPA. Brewed with the outdoor enthusiast in mind, Fastpack IPA clocks in at 4% ABV with 99 calories.

“With Fastpack, we wanted to address a gap in our portfolio while also appealing to an emerging segment of beer drinkers,” said Sales & Marketing Director, Kirk Simpson. “However, we knew this beer had to meet the high bar we’ve set for Great Divide hop-forward offerings such as Hazy IPA, Car Camper Hazy Pale Ale and Titan IPA. Fastpack IPA is an India Pale Ale first and foremost. That it also happens to be low-cal and low-ABV speaks to the ingenuity of our brewing team.”

Highlighted by a generous addition of Cashmere hops – alongside Simcoe and Chinook – Fastpack IPA offers a fruit cocktail of citrus, peach and other stone fruits with lively hints of white wine.

“Session and low-cal beers have always had a bit of a stigma against them,” explained Innovation Brewer, Tony Rau. “They typically can be watery or have a very thin mouthfeel. By changing the base of the recipe to include some more protein heavy malts, it has allowed us to find a middle ground of maintaining a full mouthfeel while keeping the calories and carbs down. At the end of the day, we made a low-cal IPA that drinks like a normal IPA, just with fewer calories and less guilt!”

Fastpack IPA draws its name from the activity that combines long-distance trail running and ultralight backpacking. The packaging is eye-catching, capturing a fastpacker in mid-adventure. Fastpack IPA will be available across Great Divide’s distribution footprint on draft and as a 12 oz. 6-pack starting in March.

About Great Divide Brewing Co.

Founded in 1994, Great Divide Brewing Company is Denver’s oldest and largest packaging brewery and one of the most decorated breweries in America, recognized for brewing some of the globe’s most balanced yet assertive and flavorful beers. These beers have landed an impressive amount of acclaim, earning 18 Great American Beer Festival Medals, five World Beer Cup Awards and 14 spots on Beer Advocate’s “Top Rated Beers: Colorado” (2015). Here at Great Divide, Bold Character isn’t just a catchphrase. It’s the philosophy behind what we brew, how we think and what we believe. For more information visit www.greatdivide.com.

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New Realm Brewing Releases beLOW Hazy IPA

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New Realm BrewingATLANTA, Ga., & VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. – There’s something exciting flowing through the tanks at New Realm Brewing Co. Slightly hazy and brimming with tropical notes, beLOW is New Realm’s first low-carb and Hazy IPA. Anchored by one of the company’s favorite hop combinations and a meticulously engineered brewing process, beLOW Hazy IPA is the perfect balance of bright citrusy notes, drinkability and low-carb profile. Light, crisp and refreshing – beLOW is the lighter side of IPA.

“This beer is something special”, said Bob Powers, Co-Founder and Chief Sales & Marketing Officer of New Realm Brewing. “It’s citrusy, refreshing, and has the hop character that IPA lovers crave, with less than half the calories. beLOW was brewed with high-quality, all-natural ingredients and doesn’t make a consumer compromise taste, quality, or their healthy, active lifestyle like some beers.”

“We created beLOW with some of my favorite hop varieties which lend a light, citrusy flavor profile that impresses the palate. The process of brewing a low-carb, low-calorie beer is very unique and challenging. In most beers there is a residual sweetness in the final product, and carbs come with that rich sweetness. With beLOW, we use exogenous enzymes to break down the complex sugars in the wort which leaves the beer with a drier finish and significantly less carbs than your standard IPA, without sacrificing any flavor,” said Brewmaster and Co-Founder Mitch Steele.

About New Realm Brewing:

New Realm Brewing Company is an American craft brewery started in 2016 by co-founders Carey Falcone, Bob Powers and Mitch Steele. On a mission to rethink tradition and bend the rules, the team planted their first production facility in a 20,000 square-foot space on Atlanta’s east side BeltLine trail in December of 2017, featuring a 25hl brewhouse, 3,000 square-foot restaurant, rooftop patio and beer garden. A second location opened in Virginia Beach in the middle of 2018 enabling New Realm to increase their ability to innovate and create new beers. The Virginia Beach location is a 58,000 square-foot space with a 50bbl brewhouse, a large outdoor beer garden, private event space and restaurant. New Realm’s core principles are quality, creativity, authenticity, and striving for perfection, all with a customer-centric commitment and approach.

New Realm’s awards include: Brewbound’s “Rising Star” brewery, Ratebeer’s “Best New Brewer in Georgia,” Ratebeer’s 11th “Best New Brewer in the World”, and Virginia Craft Beer Cup’s gold medal and “Best in Show” for Euphonia Pilsner. Brewmaster Mitch Steele was awarded the Russell Scherer Award for Innovation in Brewing and co-authored the book IPA: Brewing Techniques, Recipes and the Evolution of India Pale Ale. For more information please visit https://newrealmbrewing.com/

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Tröegs Introduces New Look for Troegenator Doublebock

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Troegs Independent BrewingHERSHEY, Pa. — Tröegs Independent Brewing announces a new look for its iconic dark and crisp Troegenator. Additionally, the award-winning year-round doublebock is now brewed with a portion of local grain.

A hallmark of the Hershey, PA-based craft brewery since its early days, the malt-forward Troegenator calls for so much grain, Tröegs had to custom-build its brewhouse around it. As of 2021, the brewery will use 50,000 pounds of Pennsylvania-grown and malted two-row barley annually as part of the beer’s massive grain bill.

“When people think of local ingredients, they often think of hops,” says John Trogner, Tröegs co-founding brother and brewmaster. “But the quality and quantity of the grain in Pennsylvania lends itself to brewing. On top of that, we’re reinvesting in our community. Sending a local grower a check feels good.”

Layered with notes of smooth caramel, stone fruit and fresh toasted grains, this malty, crisp and deliciously dark doublebock is a beer for people who love beer.

Troegenator is available year-round on draft and in 12-oz. bottles and cans everywhere Tröegs is sold.

To learn more about Troegenator, including its origins and label art design, please visit https://troegs.com/

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The story of Deschutes Brewery’s Black Butte Porter

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Black Butte Porter - Deschutes Brewery Promised Great Beer and Delivered with its first beer.In 1987, we originally hired Frank Appleton, a brewing consultant from Canada to help us establish the brewing component of our planned brewpub in Bend, Oregon. In addition to designing the equipment, and having it installed, he would formulate the first three beers in our line-up. Not knowing much about it in 1988, we wanted something light, medium, and dark. Frank came up with Cascade Golden Ale, Bachelor Bitter, and Black Butte Porter. Our first brewer, John Harris, then put his hand (and considerable skill) on the formulation and Black Butte Porter was born. However, it was not until sometime later that Black Butte Porter became our “flagship” beer. After a year or so, and out of necessity to keep the brewery going, we began to explore wholesale distribution. Thinking conventionally, we began with Cascade Golden Ale and Bachelor Bitter as being most adaptable to the limited palates of 1980’s drinkers. It just seemed like lighter colored beer would make sense.

Once while meeting with our distributor in Portland, Oregon, Jim Kennedy, he posed a question. He said, “You need to decide what you want to be as a brewery. Now, you can sell these lighter colored beers and carve out your small but reasonable slice of the very large, light colored beer-pie, competing with everyone for that slice. Or, you can sell Black Butte Porter and, although the dark-colored beer-pie is much smaller, you can own the whole thing”. I guess being a contrarian at heart, that proposition appealed to me. Although we had to sacrifice quite a bit to make that happen. You see, the path of least resistance for beer salespeople was certainly not in dark beer. Particularly when we had developed some really popular lighter beers like Mirror Pond Pale Ale. But we were committed. For the next few years, we kept the brakes on Mirror Pond and limited its market exposure to ensure Black Butte could gain a foothold in the market. It didn’t hurt that it was winning awards at a pretty good clip in those days. As a result, you could say we developed our second brand first, and we actually had two flagship brands with Black Butte and Mirror Pond sharing that distinction.
Black Butte Porter has continued to evolve, although our target flavors never really changed. But with growth naturally comes change. When we built our larger production facility in 1993, we installed a 50-barrel brewery. Later, we added a German-manufactured 150 barrel brewery that was much more efficient. Getting those two breweries to brew Black Butte Porter that tasted the same was quite the chore. But, we’re pretty stubborn, so four years later, we declared success and the legacy (and flavor) of Black Butte Porter could continue.

Black Butte continues to be our flagship. Even though beers like Mirror Pond Pale Ale and Fresh Squeezed outsell it. Black Butte is the best-selling porter in America and a significant point of pride for our team. It has successfully dispelled the misconceptions of dark beer. It is particularly successful at that task with novice craft drinkers. But, if we can get them to taste it, they are usually hooked! It has also spurred spin-offs like Black Butte Anniversary that is an imperial version of Black Butte Porter brewed for our company’s anniversary, but being barrel-aged and topping out around 11% alcohol with various added adjuncts like chocolate, chilis or coffee. We have also made a Black Butte Whiskey, with local distillery, Bendistillery. We make the wash for the whiskey using a variation of the Black Butte formula for that wash. Finally, we also do Black Butte3 where we use an imperial version of Black Butte Porter and age it in barrels that were used for Black Butte Whiskey.

Business consultants like to ask a question evaluating your business. That is, “what can you do your competitors can’t?” For me, the answer is clearly Black Butte Porter. The legend will continue. What we do with it next, well, stay tuned.

Written by Gary Fish, Founder of Deschutes Brewery

 

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Saugatuck Brewing Company to Release Blueberry Lemonade Shandy

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Blueberry Lemonade Shandy - Saugatuck Brewing Company DOUGLAS, Michigan— Saugatuck Brewing Company, one of Michigan’s largest independently owned craft breweries, is announcing the return of their spring and summer release of Blueberry Lemonade Shandy. Offered in 6-packs, 12-packs and on draft Blueberry Lemonade Shandy will be available on store shelves and beer taps across the brewery’s distribution footprint beginning in early March. It takes over for Peanut Butter Porter, the brewery’s second packaged seasonal style that is available from September through February.

Established in 2005, Saugatuck Brewing Company first started brewing Blueberry Lemonade Shandy in 2017 as a draft-only beer to be featured exclusively on tap at their Pub in Douglas, MI and at Michigan summer beer festivals. However, by the end of that summer it was very clear that the beer was a huge hit and would later move its way to the canning line.

“We wanted to do a simple shandy style for our Pub. During one of our annual meetings, one of our sales team members suggested that we try blueberry,” recalls Michael Biddick, the brewery’s Michigan and Ohio Sales Director. “Turns out it was a dandy idea”.

The beer’s catchphrase “Summer on the Brain” is a playful nod to the mental state that many Michiganders often find themselves in towards the end of winter as they find themselves wishing that summer could somehow arrive sooner. To coincide with the catchphrase, the beer’s packaging is bright blue and yellow and features a smiling lemon head that has since become the face of the Blueberry Lemonade Shandy brand – The Shandy Man.

“Summer on the Brain” as described by Robert Antor, Saugatuck Brewing Company’s Creative Content and Marketing Director is “the thought process of wanting the summer experience to get here as fast as possible. At some point throughout the winter season, you are going to find yourself thinking, when am I going to be sitting by a lake with a beer in my hand soaking up some sun? We like to call that a case of Summer on the Brain and Blueberry Lemonade Shandy is the perfect beer to remedy it.”

And what about this Shandy Man?
“The Shandy Man is always happy; he’s always smiling and has some pretty impressive dance moves. He loves summer and everything that encapsulates it. Just don’t attempt to figure out who’s behind the mask. It’s certainly not me”, according to Antor.

Fast forward to 2021 and Blueberry Lemonade Shandy continues to be a big part of Saugatuck Brewing Company’s ongoing success not only in Michigan but throughout their entire distribution footprint. In 2020 package sales of the seasonal release were up 20% and there is no reason to believe it cannot continue its success in 2021 after a very long, isolated winter.

Saugatuck Brewing Company’s slogan and cultural mindset, “Here’s to Happy”, focuses on the good times in life that bring people and beer together for good times and celebrations. The year 2020 was certainly a challenging one but here’s to hoping that Blueberry Lemonade Shandy can bring back some smiles and good times in the spring and summer of 2021.

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