Beer of the Week! 02/07/23
Commonwealth Wolf of All Streets
Regularly $17.99 / Now on Sale for $16.96
New England Style IPA
Sometimes it seems like modern craft brewing is one episode after another of Fun with New Hops! Case in point, take the Wolf of All Streets from Virginia Beach’s Commonwealth Brewing Company. (No, seriously. Take some … before we take it all!) The Wolf of All Streets (clever name, no idea why it’s called that) is packed full of Galaxy hops from Australia and Nectaron hops from New Zealand.
We’re familiar with Galaxy hops. Brewers often use them in NEIPAs, where they can provide both aroma and bittering. They throw in peach, passionfruit, and citrus notes. Less familiar for us is Nectaron.
Nectaron is another New Zealand hop helped along by New Zealand’s Plant & Food Research. It was in development for 16 years before its full release in 2020. Primarily an aroma hop, it adds aromas of passion fruit, peach, and pineapple.
Now, if you’re expecting the Wolf of All Streets to be a juice bomb, you’re part of the way there. It’s more like a juice missile. The hop profile is so sharp and focused. It’s like a peach/pineapple dart to your tastebuds, hitting you high on the palate and staying there.
Bonus Beer of the Week (‘Cause only the good try one.)
Abita Turbodog
Regularly $11.99 / Now on Sale for $10.96
American Brown Ale
Founded in 1986 some 30 miles north of New Orleans, Abita Brewing Company is one of the stalwarts of craft brewing. Heck, they were founded before most of the craft brewers you’ve heard about. Just to give you some context, in 1980, there were four craft breweries in the U.S., and they were all on the West Coast. By 1985, there were only 100 (according to a 2015 report by the Journal of Wine Economics). Then came Abita, which remains independently owned to this day and still puts out solid beer.
One of Abita’s not-so-secret weapons is their water source. They pull their water right from Abita Springs, specifically, right from the springs’ underground aquifer system, where the water is fresh and unpolluted without needing filtering or chemical treatment. This water is one of the reasons Abita beers all taste so fresh and clean.
The Turbodog is Abita’s longtime brown ale. (With the colder weather, we were looking to beef up our brown ales. So, we thought, “Hey! The Turbodog is great. Why not bring the Turbodog back?”) Abita takes pale, caramel, and chocolate malts that pack a dark toffee-like punch without letting them fatten their brew’s light body. They bitter that malt with Willamette hops. Developed from the milder English Fuggle hop, Willamette provides its parent’s spicy, herbal bitterness, just more so. Fuggle hops are typically used in English Brown Ales, so using Willamette is like turning the English Brown Ale up a notch. The resultant taste has a strong coffee flavor, but it’s more like Ethiopian coffee with its fruit notes. Despite its light body, the Turbodog is a robust brown ale and unafraid to be so. That’s one reason we like it.
Coming from south Louisiana, you just know Abita made the Turbodog to go with Jambalaya. However also try it with any stew with beef and potatoes and a big old piece of rye bread.
Remember!
You can see our entire beer inventory on Untappd.com!