Beer of the Week!
Interboro Mad Fat! Fluid
Regularly $17.99 / Now on Sale for $16.96
Hazy IPA
Jesse Ferguson is co-founder, heard brewer and distiller at Interboro Spirits & Ales in Brooklyn, and craft beer is something he’s always known. First, growing up in Fort Collins, CO he drank New Belgium’s Fat Tire when his friend’s older brother would illegally score them some. Meanwhile, his father was drinking beer from Odell. When Jesse was a young adult, he got an internship at Terrapin Brewing Company, where his brother-in-law was a cellarmaster. We mean … how was Ferguson not going to get into craft brewing?
Finally, while working as the head brewer for Carton Brewing Company in New Jersey, he got the hankering to go out on his own. (Hold on; we’re not done.) By chance, Ferguson met his in-laws’ next door neighbor Laura Dierks, who was eager to open a distillery. (‘Cause that type of thing happens all the time.) The more they talked and got along, the more they saw the opportunities in joining their ventures. Two years of planning and work later, and Interboro Sprits & Ales was born in September 2016. They are the first joint brewery and distillery in Brooklyn, bringing good beer and spirits to hipsters and non-hipsters alike.
The Mad Fat! Fluid is a hazy IPA. Malted wheat and oats fill out the haze, while Mosaic, Centennial, and Equinox hops do the bittering. If we had to guess, we’d say that Centennial held the lion’s share, because the citrus force is strong in this one. Ferguson is a self-proclaimed lover of hops, and you can taste, in this beer, an appreciation for that old time citrus religion taste wrapped in a new hazy blanket.
Of course, our take away from all this is … it’s finally happened. The Craft Beer Revolution was so long ago, that we now have people brewing craft beer who’ve never known a world without it. Oh, well. Time flies when you’re drinking fun.
Bonus Beer of the Week (‘Cause a one-hit wonder, while nice, still leaves you wanting more.)
Drekker Neon Phenom
Regularly $19.99 / Now on Sale for $17.96
Double New England Style IPA
Two things to know about Drekker in Fargo, ND. 1) They’re kind of a big thing, and 2) they do their big things with a sense of humor.
Playing off of Fargo’s Scandinavian roots, they’ve taken two Norse words — one, a verb meaning “to drink” and another, a noun meaning “a draft drink” — and a French name for a viking ship and blended all three to get “Drekker.” Of the four founders (a former homebrewing quartet), they call their chief of business and marketing their “Head of Nerdery” and their social media manager “Chief of Hipster Relations.” Opening in 2014, they expanded in 2018 into an abandoned locomotive repair building turning it into a brewpub, market, event space, and hotel that they call — wait for it — Brewhalla. (Too good, right?)
Finally, since their inception, they have focused on community support. Currently, the choose a different local non-profit each month and funnel either monetary or volunteer support their way. They call these their “Unpillage” efforts. All of this brewhaha is buoyed by increasingly loved beers wrapped in labels that we can only describe as the product of a day-glo zombie slaughterhouse fetish.
Their brewing, however, is serious business. The Neon Phenom is a hazy love letter to the more Metal side of the Strata hop. With some Vic Secret and Huell Melon thrown in on top of a dry malt base, nowhere to be found is the strawberry and passion fruit notes that Strata can give. Instead you get a restrained juiciness reminiscent of mandarin orange zest. It’s one of the few successful examples of a dry, yet still juicy, NEIPA that we’ve encountered.
Just when you thought Fargo would only ever bring to mind your favorite Cohen Brothers movie … after Raising Arizona, of course. (No? C’mon! Raising Arizona!)
Remember!
You can see our entire beer inventory on Untappd.com!