One of the things that we love about beer is that it's a very social drink. You have it with friends and family, and sometimes you even make events specifically to go out and drink it. So when other businesses want to get involved with our beer, we absolutely love it!
Having the little community of The Corner Dairy, WA Cellar Door Doubleview, and Scarborough Cellars come together with these beers has definitely kicked the year off on the right foot for us.
The idea was simple; we wanted to showcase how the same hops give off different flavours and characteristics depending on when they're added to the boil. Scarborough Cellars likes big bitter beers, WA Cellar Door Doubleview likes big hazy beers, and The Corner Dairy loves all beers.
So it all fell into place. We would do a West Coast IIPA and an East Coast IIPA with the same hops, but we'd add them at different portions of the boil and see what happens! With the resulting two beers drinking them side by side, you might notice some similar flavours come through, but they are very different animals separately.
The WCIIPA is bracingly bitter, with huge notes of grassines, pine and lime pith. The bitterness of this beer lingers and grows with every sip. It's not for the faint of heart. The ECIIPA has a slight bitterness to it, just enough to counterbalance its hop-forward notes of citrus, coconut, passionfruit and tangerine. It's not a vast juice bomb but a well-balanced fruit-forward ECIIPA.
These beers represent what we love about brewing and the industry: people coming together, having a good time, making good beer and possibly learning something along the way.