Alpine Beer Company | Four Brewers Podcast

Season 3, Episode 17 – Today, the 2016 California IPA Showdown.

It’s been a while since our last showdown, and we’ve wrestled with how we are going to handle IPA for a long time now. Initially, we thought about trying to get the best of the best IPA from around the country and compare them all blind. The challenge there is it’s nearly impossible to get beer from all over the place, at an acceptable level of freshness, in one place at one time. Plus, as fun as it is to read about a magical elixir from a brewery thousands of miles away that drinks of pure unobtainium, what about something a bit easier to come by?

Enter the CA Shelf IPA Showdown!

These beers are all from California. They’re all IPAs and all widely and readily available. Hell, they’re probably sitting in your local grocer dying a slow painful death. So we set out to determine the king of the hill.

The Method

While we knew which beers were in the pool, we had our good friend Dr Zack administer the tasting for us totally blind. We didn’t know what we were drinking when we rated it, and we revealed at the end. We each rated the beer 1-100 using our completely arbitrary personal preference scales, and averaged those ratings to get a total.

All of these beers were well within acceptable freshness range (The oldest bottle had a bottling date of 2/9/2016 which was less than 2 months before recording) and were purchased at our old standby Gerrard’s Market in Redlands, CA. All of the beer at this store is kept in a walk in cooler, so conditions were about as ideal as we’re going to get. But all of this beer was purchased, by us, off the shelf, and not provided by the brewery.

The Rankings

#9 Lagunitas Brewing Company – IPA
Average Score: 56.75
Distribution: 48 states

Lagunitas IPA may hail from California, but you can probably get it at your local gas station. This beer is available in 48 states in the US, and likely the only IPA on at the janky bar down the way from you that got one of these IPAs that people keep talking about. In this field of CA standbys, Lagunitas disappointed. We were impressed with the clarity, but minimal hop presence combined with a maltier than average backbone and astringent flavors led this beer to rank a full 10 points below the next lowest ranking beer.

#8 Sierra Nevada Brewing Co. – Torpedo Extra IPA
Average Score: 65.75
Distribution: Everywhere

Probably the only beer more ubiquitous than Lagunitas IPA is Sierra Nevada’s venerable Torpedo. This beer is available in all 50 states and Washington DC! It’s also doing pretty poorly against it’s CA born peers. We thought the beer was appropriately old school. Aroma notes included citrus, pine and crackery sweet malt character, but the flavor fell flat with our field. Too much sweet caramel malt, limited hop presence and an overall flat, bitter character dropped this standby near the bottom of the field.

#7 Stone Brewing Co. – Stone IPA
Average Score: 71.75
Distribution: 43 states

Stone IPA is a standby in California and beyond, acting as an aggressive example of the West Coast IPA style. We found it aggressive indeed – flavor descriptors include words like bracing, challenging, boozy and unrefined. While overall we enjoyed the beer, we found the rough around the edges approach to IPA to be limiting and knocked it down in the field.

#6 AleSmith Brewing Company – IPA
Average Score: 73.25
Distribution: 15 States

AleSmith IPA has been discussed on 4B before in a Going in Blind segment. It continues to vex the show, convincing Greg that he was drinking Stone IPA until the reveal showed him to be dead wrong. This beer scored high marks from John and Jason for being a classicly bitter “San Diego style” West Coast IPA, but didn’t do as hot with Matt and Greg.

#5 Bear Republic Brewing Co. – Racer 5 IPA
Average Score: 79.375
Distribution: 28 states

Racer 5 from Bear Republic has been the low key stand by west coast IPA for several years now. We were able to pick out a lot of different aroma notes, and kept finding different aroma descriptors the more we tried it. While it registered high notes with most of our crew, Jason was a dissenter and was so put off by the odd sweet aftertaste and diesel aroma notes that he knocked it down to his 3rd lowest beer of the day. Jason’s 66 score knocked it down from an 83.83 (and second place) into 5th. From a beer that has roots tracing back into the 1990s, Racer 5 made a very strong showing.

#4 Alpine Beer Company – Duet
Average Score: 79.5
Distribution: 6 states

We went in depth comparing Alpine Duet vs. Green Flash Duet way back in season 2, episode 32, and we had high praises for both versions then. Some might think that having the smallest distribution footprint (even after the Green Flash acquisition) would give this beer an unfair advantage, but the gang was divided on this beer in this showdown. Jason and John really liked it and considered it an above average beer. Greg and Matt, on the other hand, thought it was fairly ho hum. In the end, Alpine Duet scored solidly and placed above the middle of the field.

#3 Green Flash Brewing Company – West Coast IPA
Average Score: 82
Distribution: 46 states

While it kinda seems like a double up to have Green Flash and Alpine in the same showdown, the West Coast IPA is a classic and acts as a solid representative of the style. But you wouldn’t know that to listen to our notes, as we made it a huge point to talk about how not West Coast the beer is. It was a bit maltier and danker than we expected, and while our initial reactions were a bit reserved, upon digging into our glasses we came to really enjoy it. We didn’t absolutely love the aroma, but the flavor really brought us around. Between this beer and Alpine at number 4, Green Flash made a strong showing as a brewery.

#2 Ballast Point Brewing and Spirits – Sculpin IPA
Average Score: 82.5
Distribution: 34 states

Sculpin is the beer that really put Ballast Point on the map after their World Beer Cup Win in 2010. It quickly rocketed from a limited seasonal beer into a flagship and now one of the most readily available IPAs in the markets that get Ballast Point. An established favorite with Jason, this beer impressed the gang with it’s more modern IPA style and tropical fruit notes. Greg appreciated the malt character while Jason liked the lingering dankness. It hit everyone’s palate in a just the right way which led it to barely edge out the competition from Green Flash.

#1 Firestone Walker Brewing Company – Union Jack IPA
Average Score: 89
Distribution: 22 states

Union Jack is considered by Matt to be the Rodney Dangerfield of the California IPA world. While very widely available, it does not usually get a lot of accolades from the beer world. It also suffered from being the oldest beer in our flight, bottled on 2/9/2016! Despite that, this beer wowed us. We loved the aroma, and loved the beer in just about every way. It seemed to walk the tightrope between malty and dry, hoppy and bitter, and came in right in the sweet spot for our palates. It was the second highest rated beer from John, and the highest rated from Matt, Jason and Greg. Despite being counted out by Jason going into the showdown, Firestone continues their dominance in 4B Blind Showdowns and tops the podium again. We promise we’re not getting kickbacks from them, you guys.

In case you wanted to see the individual scores, here it is:

So, there you have it.

BREW THE SHIT OUT OF IT.

Beers from this week’s episode:
Alpine Beer Company – Duet
AleSmith Brewing Company – IPA
Ballast Point Brewing and Spirits – Sculpin IPA
Stone Brewing Co. – Stone IPA
Sierra Nevada Brewing Co. – Torpedo Extra IPA
Bear Republic Brewing Co. – Racer 5 IPA
Lagunitas Brewing Company – IPA
Firestone Walker Brewing Company – Union Jack IPA
Green Flash Brewing Company – West Coast IPA (2016)

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Season 2, Episode 32 – This week we find out if Green Flash Brewing Company’s versions of Alpine Beer Company beers are up to snuff with Alpine’s authentic brews.

These days, brewery buy-outs and partnerships are becoming more and more commonplace, not only in terms of macro breweries buying out smaller craft breweries, but also larger craft breweries partnering and purchasing smaller, well known craft breweries. One example as of late is the purchase of Alpine Beer Company by Green Flash Brewing Company. Whether a brewery is purchased by a macro or a fellow craft brewery, there is one question that most craft beer consumers and aficionados ask: What’s going to happen to the quality of the beer? Will it remain the same? Will it be brewed at the same brewery, or will it be shipped off to a massive brewhouse somewhere on the east coast, only to become a watered down, boring version of its former self?

Alpine Beer Company - Nelson and Duet — Alpine Beer Company – Nelson and Duet

When it came to the purchase of Alpine Beer Company by Green Flash, most people thought it was a good thing for both companies. Alpine was a very small operation while Green Flash was cruising along with their brand new 50BBL brewhouse and making beer for the masses all over the country. With the help of Green Flash, Alpine could afford to pay its employees more money and provide benefits for them while at the same time getting their beer to more people. Green Flash is well versed in IPA, so replicating Alpine’s massively popular IPAs shouldn’t be too much for Green Flash to handle, right?

This brings us to where we are today, and this week’s episode. For quite some time, Green Flash has been brewing two of Alpine’s best core beers: Duet and Nelson. Hop heads all over SoCal and beyond know and cherish these beers. They’re legendary. So, when Jason heard that beer geeks were harshly questioning the quality of Green Flash’s versions of the hoppy Alpine classics compared to the Alpine versions (which Alpine still brews and bottles), he decided to take matters into his own hands.

This week, we’re drinking Duet and Nelson from both Green Flash Brewing Company and Alpine Beer Company. Jason went to Alpine Beer Company to purchase fresh bottles of Duet and Nelson that were brewed at Alpine, then went to Green Flash Brewing Company to purchase two fresh growlers of the same beers brewed at Green Flash.

SPOILER ALERT: RESULTS AFTER THE PHOTO.

Let’s cut to the chase. We were very surprised with the outcome of this experiment. Two tasters of each beer were brought to us blindly. We were told what the beers were by name, but didn’t know which brewery they came from. John’s girlfriend, Yvonne, helped us out with that. [Thanks, Yvonne!] As it turns out, the criticism of Green Flash’s versions of Alpine’s beers is justified.

Duet, brewed with Simcoe and Amarillo hops, was the real eye-opener. Drinking these beers side by side, you’d think they were completely different beers. Their colors were even quite different. Aromas were also different, and not just subtly. We even had to send Yvonne back to make sure she brought us Duet from each brewery. They were that different. The room was divided on which one of these was the better beer. In the end, we chose the Green Flash version as (what we thought was) the authentic version. Wrong.

The two Nelson variations were actually much closer to one another. But just like Duet, their colors were wildly different. The room agreed that one of the beers stood head and shoulders above the other. We guessed this one correctly. The Alpine version was fantastic.

So, there you go. It seems the the criticism of Green Flash’s versions of the Alpine IPAs is somewhat warranted. That being said, Green Flash’s versions were still very good beers, but were different from the originals brewed by Alpine. Could batch scaling be the issue? Maybe each brewery had a different crop of hops? Then there’s the beer color issue. We kick around some ideas regarding why they were so different, but in the end, who knows. Maybe one day we’ll have Green Flash on the show and we’ll get an answer.

BREW THE SHIT OUT OF IT.

UPDATE: 8.19.15. FROM THE FULL PINT:

Mike Hinkley says
August 18, 2015 at 3:26 pm

Hey guys,
Here is the real scoop on the difference between beers brewed at Alpine and Green Flash.

Alpine Beers have always varied somewhat batch to batch. When Pat McIlhenney and and Chuck Silva worked on the recipes for Green Flash, they attempted to mimic the “ideal” batch brewed at Alpine, not any particular batch result. At an all-hands team meeting we had at Alpine last November, one employee asked Pat what he though of the Green Flash versions of Alpine beer. He replied, without hesitation, “Nelson is getting better, Hoppy Birthday is very close, and Duet is better than we ever made it.”

We continue to work on all of the beers. For the first two years of making Alpine beers, there was one major obstacle. Alpine does not filter beer, but Green Flash must, because of the size of the tanks. This has caused a difference in turbidity in the beers, which we have not consistently been able to overcome. Consistently, being the key word. At times they have been nearly perfect. At other times, they have not.

Recently, with Pat McIlhenney’s urging and guidance, we purchased and installed a very sophisticated centrifuge to filter the Alpine beer at Green Flash. This allows our brewers to dial in a specific speed to filter each beer, resulting in the targeted turbidity of that ideal batch. We have only been using the centrifuge for the past month, and are still fine-tuning the process for each beer. We are very excited and expect much more consistent turbidity going forward.

Sincerely,
Mike Hinkley
Founder
Green Flash

Beers from this week’s episode:
Alpine Beer Company: Hoppy Birthday
Alpine Beer Company: Duet
Alpine Beer Company: Nelson
Alpine Beer Company: Pure Hoppiness

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