Beer of the Week! 11/22/22
Winchester Overlook
Regularly $17.99 / Now on Sale for $16.96
New England Style IPA
Back in 2014, chemical engineer and home brewer Bonnie Landy (and her husband) and her friend Holly Redding (and her husband) started planning to open their own craft brewery. Redding lived in Harrisonburg and had watched craft breweries stimulate the community there and thought the same thing could happen in Winchester. They started with a three barrel nano-brewery in Old Town Winchester. After a successful 2015 Kickstarter campaign, they opened their own Winchester brewery and tasting room in 2016 … just three weeks after Redding had her first baby … premature. In the next three years, Landy and Redding would have three babies between them, we guess because starting a business, on its own, wasn’t enough of a challenge. Good thing the global pandemic came along, they were probably getting bored.
The Overlook is a single hop New England Style IPA, and that hop is …. the Galaxy hop, one of the heavy hitters in the NEIPA world. An Australian hop, Galaxy was first commercially released in 2009. It descends from another Australian hop, Perle, and sports the highest percentage of essential oils in the hop industry. It’s known for its passion fruit and citrus notes, and the former is on full display in the Overlook.
Off-dry, the Overlook is way juicy. Its malt base is made from Pilsner malts to really feature the hop character and from oats and wheat, most probably to contribute to its haziness.
As much as it sounds like the aesthetically appealing thing to do, Landy and Redding do not advocate smuggling this brew up to the Blue Ridge Parkway to enjoy while gazing down at a picturesque valley through a foggy sunrise. After all, these are responsible parents we’re talking about here.
Bonus Beer of the Week (‘Cause didn’t someone say, “Show us the Bonus!”?)
Great Lakes Nosferatu
Regularly $13.99 / Now on Sale for $12.96
Imperial Red IPA
Founded in Cleveland, in 1988 by brothers Patrick and Daniel Conway, Great Lakes Brewing Company is not only Ohio’s first craft brewery, but it’s also one of the oldest major craft breweries in the country. In 2018, they became employee-owned, and — more to our concern — they put out one heck of an Imperial Red IPA.
So, we can’t say why, but we just love a red IPA. It’s something about the malt character that is more forward than “regular” IPAs but not all the way to triple IPA or American Barleywine (not that we’ve been known to turn those down).
The Nosferatu starts with a 2-Row base malt, Crystal 77, and a Special Roast malt giving you a deep red ale taste that flirts with caramel notes. Great Lakes then throws in Simcoe and Cascade hops because they are not messing around! They’re balanced by the malt bill, so you’re not overwhelmed with bitterness but do get that classic West Coast grapefruit citrus flavor.
Remember!
You can see our entire beer inventory on Untappd.com!