August 21, 2018
By John Gillooly, Drake's Brewmaster
We've been making cool one-off beers at Drake's...
... for years, and the only way to get them home was in a growler (which was quite inconvenient on my bike). We've really wanted to do a better job of making these beers available, so we finally bit the bullet and bought a little table-top canning line. The primary job of this line is to put our HAYS Beer in cans, but we can't just have a canning line and not package some of our best one-off releases. So we have some special beers coming out soon, and are mulling over a whole new slew of limited 16oz cans.
We'll debut our one-off can beers at the 29th Anniversary Party, with the release of Drake's Brut Rosé, which is a play on the Extra Brut IPAs we've been making. We started this beer as a standard Brut IPA, with a mash of pilsner malt, 2-row, flaked rice, and an enzyme added to enhance fermentability. Thus making for an ultra-dry beer, in which other components can shine. In this case, unlike IPA, we restrained our hop usage. We have a couple grapey, fruity varieties in there, like El Dorado and Hallertauer Blanc, but they don't dominate. Instead, they complement a heavy-handed addition of red grape must, a blend of Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc, and Syrah. We also added some Montgomery tart cherry purée, for some extra fruitiness and a bit of tang. Maybe that was cheating, but with Andre's being our inspiration, we chose not to be too… purist-y.
After that beer is releaseD...
... we have a few more in the pipeline. Brawndo, is our electrolyte-laden kettle sour brewed specifically to deliver what plants crave. Think (lemon-lime Gatorade x Beer) ÷ 2. We will be canning and releasing Pryed, our hybrid West Coast/NEIPA, in time for Oakland Pride. Then sometime later in September, we'll release a fresh hop beer, but timing on that is dictated by the hop harvest in Yakima, WA. We will also be releasing a canned version of Baby Pineapple in honor of our departing brewer Malachi, who is taking his partner and their newborn, the aforementioned Baby Pineapple, to Oregon. They're leaving us a New Zealand hopped pale ale brewed with a whole bunch of pineapple juice.
Other projects to look for include a seasonal canning of our perennial favorite Tree Beer (Just the Tip), and an SF Beer Week release of 5-10 Malt Liquor. We're still sorting the schedule out for this new canning line, so if there are any one-offs you want to see in cans, don't hesitate to reach out!
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