Beer of the Week! 06/27/23
Interboro Memory Lane
Regularly $18.99 / Now on Sale for $17.96
Hazy West Coast Style IPA
And the throwback West Coast IPAs keep coming! Now, here’s Brooklyn’s Interboro Spirits and Ales with their shot at a blast from our recent beer past, the Memory Lane.
Interboro starts their stroll with Pilsner malt. This lighter malt in an IPA is good for letting the hops really be the lead wagon in your flavor caravan. Interboro also squeezes a touch of sweetness out of some English Pale Malt to keep things from being too harsh.
They say that they ferment things with “that reliable ale strain from Chico CA,” and that has to be Sierra Nevada — as legit a West Coast IPA yeast as you can get. “Dank hops” go in the kettle, while they dry-hop with Amarillo and Simcoe. However, despite the hop hype, what you get in the glass is a modest application of grapefruit bitterness.
So far, all the beers that we’ve had from Interboro have swung towards being crisp, light-bodied, and refreshing. The Memory Lane is no different. In fact, it’s more like a doubling down. Though slightly hazy, this is an IPA that drinks like a Pilsner. That’s not a bad thing, even if it’s not what we think of when we crack a few open in our Wayback Machine. Maybe this beer is not so much a stroll down Memory Lane as a road less taken.
Bonus Beer of the Week (‘Cause No One Told Us We Couldn’t Have One.)
Drowned Lands Sapling
Regularly $18.99 / Now on Sale for $17.96
Foeder Fermented New England Style Pale Ale
Drowned Lands Brewery, in Warwick, NY, in the Black Dirt Region — in southeastern New York, just above New Jersey — seems to be a bit of a bait and switch.
They call themselves a family owned “farm brewery,” but they don’t grow any grains or fruits on their property and don’t even have a farm. Their founder, Mike Kraai, though a homebrewer, comes to the brewery with a background in “construction and then business, and finance.” At the same time that he earnestly talks about the next big craft beer wave being beers that express a unique, local character, he also admits that the plan since they opened in 2020 always was to be a “destination brewery.” They’re based in a refurbished 1914 correctional institution that looks like a manor house. They have a hospitality friendly slogan — “Slow Down, Stay Awhile.” In short, Kraai talks beer but walks business. However, he’s not doing the brewing. Headbrewer Chase Planson is. So let us take a look at his beer.
Drowned Lands uses yeast captured from their property, their local mineral-rich water, and ingredients from local farmers. For the Sapling, they start with 2-Row Barley and white wheat, plus some oats (maybe to promote more haze). They then ferment the grains in temperature controlled foeders. They then bitter and dry-hop with mostly Mosaic hops.
Hop flavors of citrus and mint (or maybe those are the tannins from foeder) skate over a light malt backbone that boasts just a taste of sweetness to keep things pleasant. It takes a few sips to get into, but once you catch its vibe, you discover a lovely, delicate brew. Pale Ales tend to get passed over, and giving them the NEIPA treatment is a good way to reinvigorate an often sidelined style. If you’re looking for a lighter alternative to IPAs with the onset of Climate Change Summer heat, or if you’d just like a lower alcohol treat (5.1%), then the Sapling is a good choice.
Remember!
You can see our entire beer inventory on Untappd.com!