Today is National IPA Day, a celebration of all things India Pale Ale.
Celebrate National IPA Day
Chicagoist's "Beer of the Week:" New Belgium Belgo India Pale Ale
Like Coors before it, New Belgium's Fat Tire ale lost a lot of its allure once it became available in local bars and liquor stores. Any beer geek worthy of the title will tell you that there's more to New Belgium than just Fat Tire.
Chicagoist's "Beer of the Week:" "She Wolf" From Half Acre and Three Floyds
Hot on the heels of their "Invasion" Helles bock collaboration a few months back comes the second in a series of from Half Acre and Three Floyds. On the Half Acre blog, Gabriel Magliaro described She-Wolf IPA thus:
Chicagoist's "Beer of the Week": Dark Horse's Crooked Tree IPA
In keeping with our stated goal of focusing the remainder of this year's "BotW" selections on breweries we've not covered, we turn our attention this week to Dark Horse Brewing Company in Marshall, Michigan. It's a 3 hour drive to Marshall from Chicago and as with New Belgium Holland, Founder's and, naturally, Bell's worth a day trip.
Chicagoist's "Beer of the Week:" Breckenridge Brewery's "471 Small Batch" Double Hopped IPA
We often find Colorado breweries lacking when it comes to finding intense hoppy flavor in their beers. They certainly don't stack up to Midwestern breweries in that category. If anything we find beers from the Rocky Mountain State to be too sweet.
Chicagoist's "Beer of the Week:" Harpoon IPA
A visit to the East Coast isn't complete without lifting a pint or four of selections from the Boston and Vermont-based Harpoon Brewery. Harpoon's UFO hefeweisen is probably my favorite American weiss beer. But that's like saying that the girl you're dating is the best looking one at an all-girl college.
Chicagoist's "Beer of the Week:" Three Floyd's Blackheart IPA
Beer is made from four ingredients: water, malt, yeast and hops. It's the hops that provides bite and spice to the mix. Hops also help preserve beer, making it last longer. Back in the days when the sun never set on the British Empire, brewers working in India would add extra hops to their English bitter in order to survive the trip home around the south African Cape Horn and ensure its drinkability when it arrived home. This is how the India Pale Ale style earned its name.
Flossmoor Station Enters the Bottled Beer Game
Don't those bottles look pretty? We've been in contact with Andrew Mason, brewer at Flossmoor Station Restaurant & Brewery has been keeping us abreast of some of the things that he brewmaster Matt Van Wyk has been working on since the start of the year. Now we can finally tell the big news: the award-winning brewpub is set to enter the bottled beer market.

