Cracking Collabs

I have never taken collaboration beers too serious, thinking them more as acts of goodwill and camaraderie between breweries than as an opportunity to make standout beers. The more prevalent they have become, the less attention I paid to them. Over the past six months my thinking has been proved wrong, and I am now viewing collaborations as more than an excuse for a brewing boondoggle.

The Karl Strauss / AleSmith Blink of an IPA was a West Coast IPA released last fall by two San Diego craft beer powerhouses. This beer was brewed with Norwegian kveik yeast, a yeast strain that allows for flexible temperatures during fermentation. This low malt, bright hop beer dazzled with its citrus fruit and floral flavors. This beer's long, light finish refused to sour and stood out to me.

Port Brewing's The Hop Concept and Societe Brewing released Mosaic Monday for San Diego's Beer Week. (I think this was one of Societe's first released canned beers, too.) Mosaic hops, to me, are tricky and can have flavors of citrus and other fruits, or bring a deep earthiness to a beer that if misused can slip into a heavy onion flavor. The collaborating skill behind Mosaic Monday highlighted Mosaic's citrus flavors and suppressed the vegetable side. The result was a stunning West Coast IPA; biting, not weighty; crisp, not murky. This beer's abv was tame by Hop Concept standards, and stayed right at the Pupil Line (7.5% abv), which I appreciated. The note on the can hints that Mosaic Monday will make a return in 2020, let's hope so because it did not stay on shelves long, and it was one of the best IPAs I had last year.