The frequency and awesomeness of Beer Events in Brooklyn is reaching a frightening crescendo. Almost nightly you can cruise to various parts of the five boroughs and drink several lines of fresh brew from one of any of the hundreds of breweries that make it to Gotham — and that’s just the events which focus on single breweries. Three days later I’ve just barely mustered up the courage to sit down and write about the massive explosions inside my skull that occurred throughout the last event at The Gate, celebrating Northern California’s Bear Republic.
The first time I ever came across the Bear, he was pretty sweet to me. We were on his home turf, and a bar I was at had extremely fresh kegs of Racer 5, their “session” IPA, on draught. For undisclosed reasons I was afforded copious amounts of this beer for free, which went down smooth and truly gave me an appreciation for fresh, bright, amazing West Coast IPA. Since then I’ve flirted with the Bear some more, finding some on tap here and there, drinking the bottles that I could, with Racer 5 and Hop Rod Rye far outweighing the others in terms of what I consumed.
Needless to say I was not prepared for the intensity of the beers that The Gate had on that night. There were TWENTY lines of Bear Republic to choose from, plus three casks which were tapped in series. Having chased the fabled Racer X for so long after loving it’s younger brother, and having none of my friends around to discourage me from burning my mouth with hop insanity before I drank anything else, I had to go for it. A pint of Racer X is as close as I have gotten in a long time to the completely sublime freshness of IPA on the West Coast. There was a clean brightness about Racer X that sets it apart from the other big IPA, Apex, that I had at the Blind Tiger a few months back. A beautiful amber color that belied the beer’s easy drinking finish, Racer X is perfectly carbonated, relatively light bodied without being thin, and finishes with an insane hop wallop dryness that is damaging but not tongue destroying. Of course the nose on this beer is what I was after and I was not disappointed. Didn’t have the wherewithal to try and figure out what kind of Hops went into it, but there were massive amounts of resin, citrus, and just insane fresh Hop aroma. Wow. I tried to drink this slowly but that didn’t go so well.
Next I was encouraged by Pat and others to try the cask, Hop Rod Rye, already mentioned as one of my favorites from the brewery. It took me a few minutes to warm the beer up and try to recover my taste buds, but both kicked in in sufficient time and I was pleasantly surprised by how great the cask treated this beer. Or rather, how untreated it was — it was a beautiful ruddy brown, hazed and dark. Regardless, the natural, light carbonation and preserved freshness did wonders for the round Malt flavors, and the lack of heavy carbonation allowed the Rye to come across in a gentler, less astringent fashion. This Rye IPA is a great example of how malt, bitterness, and spice can all come together to form a sessionable IPA without leaning to far in any one direction. Bear Republic is masterful at balancing these properties…when they want to.
When they don’t want to be balanced, they aren’t. After not taking it easy for my first two selections, I went for the 11% ABV Barrel Aged Old Scouter’s Barleywine next. As shocked as I was by the first two beers, I could never have expected how perfect and wonderful this barleywine is. I was literally walking around stunned, telling everyone who would listen that I would rather “frame this beer than drink it.” Massive amounts of malt and barrel funk are the first thing you smell when you bring this beer up to your gullet. The malt was so thick and heavy on the nose that I couldn’t stop smelling it, like the time I visited a sugar shack in Massachussettes and wanted to bathe in the steam of the Maple Syrup cooking down. Touted as 120 IBUs, Scouter’s didn’t dissapoint in the bitterness department, but as unbalanced and insane as this beer intentionally is, it actually finished pretty clean. Delicious, warming malt coats your palate first, which is then washed away by strong bitterness. Genius moves all around. I’m not sure how old or how common this is, but wow, wow, wow. One of the best Barleywine’s I’ve ever had, and definitely my #1 Bear Republic beer, even though I don’t think I’d have the heart to drink another anytime soon.
Bear Republic completely mauled all of us at The Gate that night — and I learned a lot about beer in the process. Honorable Mentions go to EZ Ryder, a 100% Rye Beer (yes, and it was…balanced, ridiculous) and Pete Brown’s (a winner as always). For more action, check out Beertender Pat’s pictures from the event for completely superfluous heavy crew shots.
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