American Pale Lager

While it’s easy for a homebrewer to pop over to a shop and purchase all the ingredients needed to make a beer, things are a bit more complicated for larger scale brewers. Ingredients like malt and hops are often purchased under contracts that need to be signed years in advance. Small or new breweries are often squeezed out of the most popular hops because they’re all contracted out for several years. That being said, sometimes small quantities of popular but supply constrained hops will often become available. If you’re a tiny brewpub operation that is constantly churning through new brews (a la Tired Hands), you can probably swing that sort of inconsistent approach. But if you’re a larger brewer (and believe it or not, most are), that small amount of hops might allow you to make one batch of beer, but not more.

Hopstitution is Jack’s Abby’s answer to this conundrum. They’ll make the same recipe, a 5.5% ABV extra pale lager, with every batch, only varying the hops based on what’s available. What I have here is batch four, made with Australian hops (the label sez Aussie Rulez). Specifically, this was made with Ella, Topax, and Galaxy hops. I’ve actually not even heard of Ella or Topax, but Galaxy is one of the trendiest and thus supply constrainediest of hops, so let’s see how this little experiment pays off:

Jack’s Abby Hopstitution #4 Aussie Rulez – Pours a slightly hazy, golden yellow color with a finger of white head that leaves lacing as I drink. Aroma is beautiful, tons of tropical fruit hops. Taste is somewhat less powerful than the nose implies, though there’s plenty of hop flavor to go around, with less bitterness than expected. Mouthfeel is crisp and clean, light bodied, quaffable. Overall, this actually might be my favorite Jack’s Abby beer yet. B+

Beer nerd Details: 5.5% ABV bottled (500 ml). Drank out of a tulip glass on 9/6/14. Bottled: 7/31/14 (I think? The day is hard to read on my bottle).

I also had a Session Rye IPL from my little Vermont Trip that was pretty darned good. I suspect Jack’s Abby would be a regular purchase if they were local, and I should really figure out a way to try some of the more sought after brews…

Beer dorks don’t seem to get very worked up by lagers, but then Jack’s Abby shows up in Framingham, Massachusetts, and everyone starts losing their minds. It shouldn’t be a surprise, because there’s lots of flavorful lagers out there, but perhaps neophytes still associate lagers with the Macro crowd. Or maybe they’re just so overawed by massive facemelting ales that the more subtle, cleaner lagers get lost in the shuffle. Whatever the case, there’s a lot of room in the market for breweries that take the road less traveled. From what I can see, Jack’s Abby is doing very well for themselves. They’re a small operation and only distribute in MA, but a very generous friend kindly picked up a few of their beers during a trip up there last week (Thanks Danur!). I was most excited to get my grubby hands on these suckers, and immediately made preparations to drink this one first:

Jack’s Abby Hoponius Union – Pours a slightly hazy yellow golden color with a finge ror two of dense white head. Smell is full of hugely floral hops, some grapefruit, and maybe a subtle bubblegum yeast character too. Taste is full of those floral hops, herbal even, a bit spicy, some grapefruit, with a well matched bitterness towards the finish. Not as much citrus as I’d expect from something made with Citra and Amarillo (Centennial, on the other hand, seems to be dominant here), but that’s not a bad thing at all. Mouthfeel is medium bodied, clean, crisp, and easy going. Overall, this is really good, easy drinking stuff. Not quite exactly what I was expecting, but damn good nonetheless. B+

Beer Nerd Details: 6.7% ABV bottled (500 ml). Drank out of a tulip glass on 6/21/13. Bottled 05/06/2013.

A promising start, and I’ve got three more lined up. You will no doubt be seeing them over the next couple weeks.