Beer of the Week! 11/08/22

Elder Pine Form & Land

Regularly $18.99 / Now on Sale for $17.96
New England Style IPA

We’re both delighted and frustrated by Elder Pine Brewing & Blending in Gaithersburg, MD. We love how they are engaged in a “passionate pursuit of better beer … focusing on classic styles with a modern twist.” However we never see those efforts. We only get to read about them. Instead, we get their takes on the relatively new style of the New England Style IPA. Fortunately, those beers are consistently where the “delight” comes into play.

The Form & Land — along with barley — is malted with oats and spelt to make it not just hazy but creamy. It’s then pummeled with a ton of hops — Galaxy, Trident, El Dorado, Lotus, and Eureka. Seriously. We’re pretty sure we haven’t even heard of Trident hops before!

(Trident is actually a blend of three Pacific Northwest hops. Originally released in 2019, hop grower and breeder Hopsteiner combined three hop varieties with an eye to delivering a stronger and wider aroma and flavor range than you can get with any one hop. More beer mad science!)

With such a colossal cavalcade of cannabaceae, it’s hard to tease out individual fruit characteristics for you. There’s some ripe melon and some citrus, of course, but the overall gestalt suggests lime. (Try this beer with fajitas or tacos!) Considering the amount of ingredients, the whole beer comes across as surprisingly careful and delicate, as is typical for Elder Pine NEIPAs. So what if we can’t actually try their blended beers yet? Beers like this one will do until they come along.

Bonus Beer of the Week (‘Cause Beer Two and Beer One can do anything, anything, anything under the sun!)

Ballad Double Brown

Regularly $13.99 / Now on Sale for $12.96
Double Brown Ale

Ballad Brewing, the Dynamos from Danville, have re-released this tasty fall malt bomb.

“We took a delicious brown ale and doubled it.” Yes. Yes, they did just that.

Ten - count ‘em - ten different malts go into the Double Brown. Now, usually brown ales can have a touch of astringency mixed into their caramelly toffeeness. However, doubling down on the Double Brown has crushed that tartness, leaving barely a whisper of it on the edges of this smooth, medium-bodied brew. Maybe that’s what’s behind those slight notes of cinnamon that you get on the finish.

This is the type of beer that Ballad does really well, and it’s just in time for some falling back, falling leaves, and falling temperatures. Get some now and store it for your Thanksgiving dinner before it’s gone.

Remember!

You can see our entire beer inventory on Untappd.com!