Spring 2018 in the Brewery
Visitors to either of Magnolia’s pubs have no doubt noticed the new beers steadily making their appearance amid the old favorites. Last week alone the Haight Street pub introduced three. And there’s more to come, in the coming weeks and beyond, as we all flex our brewing and recipe-making muscles.
Backing up just a bit, Seth and Andrew have each come up with a handful of lighter and extremely drinkable pale ales. Seth’s Fivey Time is a nod to the (occasional) intershift libation shared by servers and kitchen staff, quickly downed in 5-ounce increments amid a raging evening at either the pub or the Dogpatch restaurant. Fivey Time is intriguingly hopped with Galaxy, Eldorado and Mosaic. We’ve all gotten used to saying it’s Fivey Time somewhere. Andrew’s Citra & Oates is brewed with a touch of oats for texture, and festooned with Citra hops. Look for a nitro version in a couple of weeks, once the Little Brother Dry Irish Stout runs out. Andrew has also kept the Session IPA category alive in his Two Moons, a nod to Haruki Murakami’s novel 1Q84 by its name and the use of Galaxy and Mosaic in this 4.2% beer.
A number of beers using fruit are in the process of making their appearance. Shim Stock IPA, made with Buddha’s Hand Citron fruit, offers a tart and refreshing 6.6% abv/58 IBU beer taking its name from a beer can reference in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. It’s hopped with Centennial, Cascade and Citra. Singel Seeking Passion will be out in about a week, adding passion fruit to a lightweight, Trappist-style table beer, and CryptoCurrantcy is a black currant kettle-soured beer, also dry-hopped with Mosaic. At only 3.9% abv it promises to be a fragrant refresher. We’ve also got a batch of straight, unfruited kettle sour in the works; look for some blends with other beers in the near future. There’s a Block Chain joke in there somewhere.
Javanillazilla is a monstrous blend of flavors in a medium-weight Porter, combining Sightglass cold-brewed coffee and some powdered vanilla beans we recently got our hands on. Very smooth and delicious.
And the Brut IPA experiment continues. Quite a few other local breweries have come out with versions of this beer style originally dreamed up by Kim Sturdavant at Social Kitchen and Brewery. Naturally we’re partial to ours, Bombay Bubbles. The flavor of the latest batch is cleaner than the first, with a nice dry hop headiness. We also think we’ve blazed new territory with Bombay Blush, a version of the beer incorporating Carneros Pinot Noir grapes. Hold it to the light to pick up a nice pinkish tinge, and enjoy a sip of light, crisp wininess.
A few words should also be said about the reformulation we’ve undertaken with our flagship IPA, Proving Ground. Call it PG 2.0, the new version has been modernized a bit. Still evident is some of the Maris-Otter core, but the malt effect is generally lighter. The hopping has also undergone a transformation, replacing the old Simcoe and CTZ with Citra to augment the holdover Saaz and Cascade. We plan occasionally in the future to offer the old classic version, but we feel it was time for a change. And we hope you like it.
India Print (Slight Return) is sticking around as formulated, but it’s undergoing a full psychedelic conversion where its name is concerned—call it a flashback, or maybe flash-forward. It will hereafter be called Liquid Light Projection. It’s likely that it will soon be joining Proving Ground and Kalifornia Kolsch in cans.
Well, that’s about it. Well, aside from a new beer we’re working up in conjunction with Fire Station 12 in the Haight and something else too sneaky to talk about yet. Oh, and Andrew wants to use the Belgian yeast again. Any ideas?