1. In 2007, he won Boston Beer Company’s Longshot Competition with his Double IPA recipe.

2. Since 2009, Tasty has brewed his Janet’s Brown Ale (an American Brown Ale) at Russian River Brewing Company each year, as both a Pro-Am entry for the GABF and as a specialty offering in the fall/winter.

3. Tasty spends time every week imparting his homebrew knowledge on the internets via The Brewing Network.

Ok, enough of the brew cred. Here’s the recipe.

Tasty’s Session Pale Ale

Original Gravity: 1.044
Final Gravity 1.014  3.9% ABV
43% Rahr Two-row
19% Crisp Maris Otter
14% Castle Belgian Pilsner
14% Crystal 15
5% Crystal 40
5% Carapils

21 IBU Chinook at 60 minutes
12 IBU Cascade at 20 minutes
9 IBU Centennial at 10 minutes

Dryhop with Centennial at 1/2 ounce per gallon.
Notes: Mash at 156F for 45 minutes. Boil 90 minutes. Ferment at 66F with California Ale yeast. The 20 minute hop addition can be moved to flameout with a similar IBU contribution if followed by a 30 minute whirlpool rest. Any other hop regimen can be used that totals 40 to 50 IBU.

So brew on friends with help from Tasty. Make those Session Beers to last you into the hot summer months and enjoy. Might we suggest a brew day refreshment?

If homebrewers have any other questions regarding Drake’s brews, techniques, and recipes, we they are welcome to hit up our brewers via breweranswers@drakesbrewing.com.

Twitter people: You can follow Tasty online @TastyMcD.

Alpha Session is different this year.

Hold the phone. Don’t fret. We haven’t abandoned the Alpha Session you loved before. Let us explain what we mean here.

Each year the hop crops are different in varying degrees. Rainfall fluctuates; temperatures differ; one field’s aromas can diverge from the next of the same hop; and hop growers are always introducing new varieties into the mix. Last year’s CTZ can be great, but this year’s may not be anything to write home about. It’s natural.

“Hops are a changing agricultural product; a hop can vary from one year to the next; and there are always new varieties coming out,” explains Drake’s Head Brewer John Gillooly. “Our seasonals are the place where we get to really dig in with the best hops in our supply in a given year.”

Now, don’t get us wrong, we’re not just going to decide that EKGs (English hops, East Kent Goldings) are great this year and stick them in Alpha Session. We keep in mind the flavor profiles of the previous batches. We just don’t fill compelled to use the exact same recipe.

As Gillooly puts it, “We are not constrained to make these beers consistently the same recipe, but to make them consistently awesome.”

John Gillooly (left) and Brewer Chris Dunstan examine hops for Alpha Session.

Alpha Session this year will have the bright, citric American hop profile with the slight dank, pine edge that characterizes our NorCal bitter. We are using a large addition of Citra in the whirlpool and a heavy-handed dry hop with Simcoe for the slight dank, pine character loved by West Coast hop heads; El Dorado for juicy citrus and lemony flavors; and Experimental Hop 01210, which stood out amongst new hops for its pleasant floral, pine, and citrus peel aromas. How did we choose these hops? They were the best for the job.

Alpha Session, 3.8% ABV, 50 IBUs, will release on draft at Drake’s Barrel House (and at the Boonville Beer Festival) on Saturday, May 4, and this year (another change) they will be packaged in 4-packs of 12oz bottles available shortly thereafter.

Oh, but we’re not done with the good news here. We didn’t stop the Session brewing with Alpha Session alone. Starting this year brewers in the Bay Area and beyond have declared that May is Session Beer Month, and we are getting into the spirit with Alpha and its dark twin.

Omega Session will be an under 4% ABV dark, American hopped, session beer (session CDA, perhaps?) available at the Barrel House and on draft in the Bay Area. Omega Session features a brooding, dark malt character and a dank, herbaceous hop tone with prominent Mosaic and Simcoe hops (both great this year).

So stop by in May the Fourth for a pint or several of our light and dark side, appreciate our attention to the hops, and walk in a straight line home. Cheers.

**Want to know more about Session Beer Month?**

Follow on Twitter: @SessionBeerMay

OR

Like on Facebook: facebook.com/SessionBeerMonth

AND

Mark your calendar for the 1^st Annual NorCal Session Fest hosted at Drake’s on May 25^th featuring Session Beers (craft brews under 5% ABV, and preferably under 4.5%ABV) from around California. The fest will benefit the East Bay Bike Coalition. More details to come.

Yes, folks, you read that correctly. This Blue Bottle Coffee Imperial Stout (nickname: Alex’s Last Stand) will be Alexandra Nowell’s last beer at Drake’s, and while we’re very excited for her, we’re definitely bummed to lose such a talented brewer.

Where’s she going? Well, the Bay Area’s loss is the Southland’s gain. She’s heading south to the Mojave Desert to make her mark as the new Head Brewer at Kinetic Brewing Co, a brewpub just over a year old. “It’s still a real young, new market for beer, with a lot of room to grow,” says Alex.

In her time here at Drake’s Alex has certainly left her mark. She initiated and brewed the first Pink Boots Society Scholarship brew with her 2011 Pink Boots Saison, the proceeds from which fully funded two scholarships for female brewers wanting to move forward in the industry. She has led barrel program supplying the rotating barrel-aged blends and sours that have brought people from all over the Bay Area to our humble Barrel House.  She personally visited the Yakima Valley last fall to hand select our hops from the best fields and lots in Washington.

And, last but not least, she now leaves us with the first official Blue Bottle collaboration brew. The Blue Bottle Coffee Imperial Stout will be a ~9.75% imperial stout made with Blue Bottle’s Honduras Capucas, which will be added in both the whirlpool and the secondary, which should give the beans plenty of time to infuse the brew with their chocolate, nut, and fruit notes. Look for the Blue Bottle Coffee Imperial Stout at the Barrel House in the coming weeks (and we suspect some of it will find its way toward Kinetic, as well).

If you’re looking to share one last pint with Alex, she’ll be attending the Drake’s Brewing Dinner at Cannery Row in Monterey this Thursday, or you can swing by the Barrel House this Friday afternoon and try the last of her Scholarship Sour- a barrel-aged sour Pink Boot Saison. Cheers!

Holy hell, you guys. Somehow, every year, SF Beer Week outdoes itself as compared to the previous year.  With ten days and about twice as many events, it’s almost terrifying to think what kind of shenanigans we’ll get up to/survive/endure next year.  But rather than thinking about next year (all we want to think about at the moment is East Bay MUD’s finest and a nice salad), let’s recap this year’s SFBW before the memories drop out of our still-spinning heads forever.

Way back on the 8th was the Opening Celebration, back in SF’s Concourse Exhibition Center for the second year in a row.  With brewers from San Leandro to San Francisco to Santa Cruz to Susanville, there were 78 different breweries pouring their beer, and each one of them pulled out the stops, and once again, the Bay Area got to show the rest of the world just what we’re up to when it comes to the newest generations of American beer.

On Monday, we headed back to SF for a pairing at Mission Cheese.  The combination of our smoked imperial stout Scorched Earth & Jasper Hill Farms’ Winnimere seemed to blow everyone away, though those of us working that night were pretty happy with all of the pairings (we would’ve asked more people but our mouths were full).

Wednesday heralded the return of Sau & Brau, our annual pig roast with Chop Bar.  In its third incarnation, we again rearranged the Barrel House into what looked a little bit like a grand banquet hall if you squinted.  The taps started flowing at 6, and the pigs entered the building a little more than an hour later to the delight of the masses.  And based on the emails we got in the days leading up to the event- we feel we should tell you that tickets for S&B go on sale right around the first of the year.

Thursday, we found ourselves in Golden Gate Park for the ever-popular Nightlife at the Academy. We found ourselves pouring our IPA & Amber between the klipspringers and black lechwes in the African Hall, under the watchful eyes of the penguins guarding the entrance to the hall.  While there, we learned that the museum staff frowns upon offering our wares to its inhabitants, even though we stand by our opinion that it’s simply the polite thing to to.

This past Saturday, brewer & production manager John Gillooly headed to Hermitage in San Jose for their 4th Annual Meet the Brewers event.  Quite the jolly time was had by all, the South Bay food trucks definitely brought their A-game, and John found himself impressed at the caliber of questions posited to him during the event.

And of course, on the final day was the Celebrator Anniversary party, which returned this year to downtown Oakland. After nine days of SF Beer Week, most of us need a pretty compelling excuse to go puttin’ on pants for anything, much less to go drink more beer, but once again, Tom & the Celebrator crew have proven this event to be one of the absolute highlights of the whole damn week, and we were happy to be there alongside our friends at Triple Rock.

…

All in all, the Drake’s beers that seemed to make the most impact were the Black Label Hopocalypse at the Opening Celebration (and, of course, at its release the previous weekend), our Stone collab Quarter Century of Issues at, fittingly, the Celebrator quarter-century anniversary  and our Faction Brewing collab Tree Beer, which blew minds all week as people wondered how Rodger & Alexandra got so much tree aroma & flavor in there (if you missed it, the answer is “putting a bunch of trees in it”).

Cheers to Brian Stechschulte & the SF Brewers Guild for organizing SF Beer Week, as well as all the great Bay Area venues and fellow breweries that hosted us… Almanac Beer Co. & 4505 Meats at Butchers & Beers, The Bistro at the DIPA Festival, ThirstyBear at Casks & Queso, 21st Amendment, Beer Revolution, Pyramid Berkeley, Southpaw, the Craneway Pavilion, Rosamunde Oakland, Barclay’s Pub, Buddy’s, and the staff of our very own Barrel House.

Also, to whoever sacrificed your first-born for clear skies all Beer Week, we thank you, and hope that wherever they ended up isn’t too unpleasant.

The dust has settled, the port-o-potties are gone, and the forklifts are milling about like any other day. The Hopocalypse occurred, and you survived it. Because you, sir or madam, are a winner.  You looked it square in the eye, and it blinked.  And then you took a swig of the biggest, baddest IPA the East Bay has to offer.  So here’s to every last one of you craft beer drinkers and Hopocalypse survivors. Thank you all for coming out this weekend, as well as to Fist of Flour, Me So Hungry, and Fiveten Burger for helping everyone take on our hops.

And if you missed out, don’t fret. Hopocalypse Green Label will be out in stores, bars, and other beereries in the not-too-distant future, and we will have a few more Brew Rhino kegs trickling out first-come-first-served style through the Barrel House, so you can check in when it opens back up on Wednesday.

Now… get to stocking up on bottled water and cab fare, because SF Beer Week starts Friday. But in the meantime, check out our Hopocalypse photo gallery below (or on Flickr or Facebook, if that’s how you roll). Oh, and our apologies to the guy who told us he was supposed to be at work.

SF Beer Week is upon us again. We’re ready for it. You better be, too, because you know damn well it’s not gonna wait around for you to catch up.

Amid the metric zillion events all over Northern California, Drake’s is hosting & participating in a bunch of events, both at the Barrel House and all over the Bay, and if you know what’s good for you, you better swing by at least a few of them.

Friday 2/8: SF Beer Week Opening Celebration
Concourse Exhibition Center, San Francisco
https://sf-beer-week-2013-opening-celebration.eventbrite.com/
We’ll be hanging out with the best damn brewers in California to kick off the best damn beer week in the country.

Saturday 2/9: 13th Annual Double IPA Festival
The Bistro, Hayward
http://sfbw.it/37y
Drake’s will be there to defend our 2012 Triple IPA win for Hopocalypse Black Label, as well as bring along plenty other of our only-on-the-West-Coast celebrations of the humulus lupulus.

Saturday 2/9: Casks & Queso
ThirstyBear, San Francisco
http://www.eventbrite.com/event/5184294364
Cask & Queso, Triple Fermented. Fermentation lovers unite! Beer, cheese & bread on one table! Unlimited tastings of cask conditioned ales, including a cask of our Hopocalypse, paired with local and Spanish artisan cheeses and fresh baked breads.

Sunday, 2/10: Strong Beer Brunch with Drake’s and Iron Springs
21st Amendment, San Francisco
http://sfbw.it/34b
They’ll be serving Nelson, Jade, & Helga, as well as all the other 21A offerings from Strong Beer Month, which should benefit you as you attempt to lean into your first-weekend-of-Beer-Week hangover.

Monday, 2/11: Drake’s & Cheese
Mission Cheese, San Francisco
http://drakesandcheese1.brownpapertickets.com/
Join us in a celebration of love, as American artisan cheese and the cheese-friendly beers of Drake’s Brewing unite. The event will feature 5 ‘pairing stations’, each with an American cheese, a Drake’s brew, and tasting notes. The cheeses are still to be decided, but the 5 beers are locked in Hopocalypse DIPA, Amber, 1500 Pale Ale, Scorched Earth Imperial Stout, and Jolly Rodger American Barleywine. Tickets must be purchased in advance.

Tuesday, 2/12: This is the East Bay, not SF!
Beer Revolution, Oakland
http://sfbw.it/3lg
SF? Pshaw. We’re in the East Bay and this is where we show what we’re made of on the sunny side of the Bay.

Wednesday, 2/13: Sau & Brau
Drake’s Barrel House
http://drakessauandbrau3.brownpapertickets.com/
You’ve heard all the stories, and by now, you know better than to get left out.  So get yourself down to the Barrel House and dig into Chop Bar’s whole roasted hog along with- of course- some of Drake’s amazing beers for a big, full night of gluttony & grog. Throw in some live music, good friends, and nearly the entire Drake’s staff on hand to talk beer and brewing, and you have one helluva great night to look forward to.

Thursday, 2/14: East Bay Brew Fest
Pyramid Alehouse, Berkeley
http://eastbaybrewfest2013.eventbrite.com/
Pyramid hosts this best-of-the-East-Bay brewfest to benefit the Northern California MS Society. San Franciscans too scared to BART to the East Bay need not attend.

Thursday, 2/14: Nightlife at the Academy
California Academy of the Arts, San Francisco
http://www.calacademy.org/events/nightlife/
Nightlife at the Academy has quickly become a mainstay of, well, San Francisco nightlife, and part of that appeal is that they’re certainly no stranger to good beer.  Join us for a special Valentine’s Night edition of Nightlife in Golden Gate Park.

Friday, 2/15: Drake’s Through the Years at Barclay’s
Barclay’s Restaurant & Pub, Oakland
Drake’s Brewing has been around since 1989, and we’ve had more than a few of our beers flowing through the taps at Barclay’s. Beer Club members- this’ll be a good night to get some of those first-and second-page numbers checked off on your cards, as Barclay’s will have a smattering of our classic brews on tap, as well as a few of our former brewers on hand to dish dirt reminisce about their time at Drake’s.

Friday, 2/15: Smoked Beers
Southpaw, San Francisco
Feb 8-17 SF Beer Week: Southpaw Smoked Beer Flights
http://www.southpawbbqsf.com/#menu-item-484
Southpaw BBQ will be serving smoked beer all Beer Week, and Friday night, SF rep Laura will be on hand to break out the last of our Scorched Earth Imperial Stout, so swing by and take advantage of your last chance to get this in your beer hole.

Friday, 2/15: Butchers & Beers
St Gregory’s Church, San Francisco
http://www.kitchit.com/local_events/almanacbeer/butchers
“Fun and educational” isn’t just for Sesame Street any more.  The boys of Almanac are once again getting together with Ryan Farr of 4505 Meats and a handful of meat-loving California craft brewers to host a whole pig breakdown at St. Gregory’s, in a much roomier venue than in previous years.  Plus, there’s a silent auction, so you might just go home with your very own chunk of pork.

Saturday, 2/16: 4th Annual Meet the Brewers Festival
Hermitage Brewing Company, San Jose
http://meetthebrewers.eventbrite.com/
Drake’s will be down in San Jose for Hermitage’s 4th Annual Meet the Brewers Beer Festival. More breweries, the best food trucks in the Bay, and new additions to festival acitvities will make this THE San Francisco Beer Week event in Silicon Valley.

Saturday, 2/16: Drake’s Brewery Tap-ocalypse
Rosamunde Sausage Grill, Oakland
http://sfbw.it/35c
Downtown Oakland is becoming one of the Bay Area’s best destinations for beer, and if you haven’t made it to the newest stand-alone incarnation of Rosamunde, we think this’d be a marvelous time to hop on BART and check it out.

Saturday, 2/16: Chocolate & Beer Festival
Craneway Pavilion, Richmond
http://www.chocolateandbeerfest.com/
Join us for a fun afternoon of exquisite gourmet chocolates and local craft brews at the Craneway Pavilion at the Richmond Marina. Tickets get you multiple product samplings, live entertainment, and raffle prizes.

Saturday, 2/16: Grill & Chill
Drake’s Barrel House
http://barrelhouse.drinkdrakes.com/
No big release party, no multi-course dinner, no big hoopla.  Just some picnic tables, a couple of food trucks, and a bunch of taps flowing as we toss open the doors to the Barrel House and let you come by for a leisurely day of catching up on the latest Drake’s releases you might have missed during Beer Week.

Sunday, 2/17: Celebrator Beer News 25th Anniversary Party
Oakland Convention Center Marriott Hotel, Oakland
http://celebrator.com/anniversary/2013/
Returning to downtown Oakland this year, the Celebrator party has served as SF Beer Week’s closing ceremonies every year, and if you’re survived this long, congratulations!  In addition to the usual festivities, Mitch Steele of Stone Brewing will be on hand with our own Alexandra Nowell to share A Quarter-Century of Issues with you as their mercifully-sessionable last hurrah of what is sure to be another kickass SF Beer Week.

Cheers to SF Beer Week!

Nelson, Jade, and Helga, which was brewed Saturday, January 5 at 21st Amendment, will be a Triple IPA made with 2-row, caramalt, rye, chocolate malt, and a little roasted barley, along with a combination of New Zealand (Nelson Sauvin & Pacific Jade) and American hops (Centennial & Amarillo) set to hit 10.5% ABV.

The concept of this beer harkens back to a cask Alex made for the Aroma Coma and Aroma Prieta release on July 28th of 2012. Alex had decided to do a yin and yang sort of thing, adding NZ hops to a cask of Aroma Coma US-hopped IPA, and some US Chinook hops to a cask of Aroma Prieta NZ-hopped IPA.

Anyone who experienced the latter cask on that day can attest to its brilliance. It had all the elegant, aromatic gooseberry, lemon, tropical fruit experiences of the Nelson Sauvin, Pacific Jade, and Motueka hops with an added sturdy backbone of pine-woodsy aromas from the Chinook. It was a tremendous cask. Those who received it were lucky bastards indeed. So, Alex brought the idea to Shaun, and together they came up with the final Drake’s Collaboration submission to the strong beer month lineup at 21A.

“Expect an incredible hop aroma with a firm malt backbone, but the hops are gonna be the showcase here,” said Shaun during the brew day.
“It will have notes of tangerine, gooseberries, and muscat grapes from the NZ hops with the pine and citrus US hop backing,” added Alex.

Don’t know about you guys, but it sounds like its gonna be pretty damn good to us. The beer will be released on Friday, February 1st at 21st Amendment alongside a lineup of five other beers over 8.5% ABV at the pub and 6 other strong offerings at Magnolia. If you manage to try all 12 beers within the month, you will receive your own Strong Beer Month glass to commemorate your staunchness in the face of delicious, liver-crushing dangers. Drink Drake’s and Godspeed.

Enjoy Pics from the Brew Day below.

The bastards in the brewhouse are a little extra arrogant today. Stone Brewing’s Mitch Steele, Dave Hopwood, and Zippo Parzick are on the brewdeck with our own Alexandra Nowell to collaborate on a session ale for Celebrator Beer News’ 25th Anniversary.

This beer will be featured at the closing event of SF Beer Week, so as a gift to all of our livers, Mitch and Alex decided a session beer was in order.

Still, we couldn’t in good conscience team up with the author of IPA: Brewing Techniques, Recipes and the Evolution of the India Pale Ale without paying considerable attention to the hops.

For this brew we have chosen to use some of the new and exciting El Dorado hops we just received from the 2012 harvest. This’ll be both Alex and Mitch’s first time using the El Dorado hops. Says Alex, they’re “very fruit-forward, but without a lot of citrus. Not the typical American hop profile, and it even has a little mint.” Think strawberries, melon, and cantaloupe. Mitch added “it’s amazing because it has that really high alpha content, but the aromatics are just incredible.” It’ll be double dry-hopped, rounded out with Centennial hops, and should clock in at about 4.4% ABV and 43 IBUs.

Here’s hoping you’ll be just as excited about this brew as we are. Your first chance to try it, as well as pick the brains of Mitch & the Drake’s crew, will be at The Brewing Network’s Winter Brews Fest, January 26th at Todos Santos Plaza in downtown Concord.

It’s in the tanks. It’s preparing for the onslaught of thirsty beer hoards. It will be ready. Will you?

Drake’s Hopocalypse DIPA and Hopocalypse Black Label Triple IPA will be returning on Saturday, February 2nd, 10am to 9pm, at Drake’s Barrel House.

Doors will open to the Barrel House at 10am.
Hopocalypse DIPA (9.3% ABV, 100+ IBUs) will be available on tap, on cask, in 22 oz bottles (1 case per person limit), in growlers (2 per person), and in Brew Rhino kegs (limited availability, first come first served).
Hopocalypse Black Label (12.5% ABV, 100+ IBUs) will be available on tap, on cask, and in 22oz bottles (2 per person limit) at the Barrel House only.

For the hungry, Fists of Flour Wood-Fire pizza, Me So Hungry, and Fiveten Burger will be stopping by to crank out good grub for your beer-filled stomachs.

Expect casks of Hopocalypse, brewery tours, great food, Hopocalypse swag, and enough hops to send you to the end of days tasting the dank hoppy deliciousness forevermore.