E-Malt.com News article: USA, WA: Kulshan Brewery and Copper Hog Gastropub release a collaborative beer

Copper Hog Gastropub and Kulshan Brewery have collaborated on a beer that is pushing the envelope on beer styles, Seattlepi.com reported on April, 2.

“It’s just like an IPA,” Kulshan Brewery owner Dave Vitt says of his new Full 90 IPA. “But it’s pale!”

Aaron Matson, owner of the Copper Hog Gastropub approached Vitt about doing a commemorative beer for Bellingham’s new minor league soccer team, Bellingham United. “I’m getting all the local breweries to make a Bellingham United beer,” says Matson. The Copper Hog is the home pub for the team. “I wanted some kind of an IPA, but I had no idea he would do something like this. I mean, I’ve had red IPA’s on tap, black IPA’s, even a white IPA. I’ve had Belgian IPA’s, session IPAs and I even ordered a keg of the new zero IBU IPA. But a pale IPA? Who knew?”

The style is not completely without precedent, according to Charlie Papazian of the Brewers Association. “There are tales of British brewers making an IPA that was pale back in the Nineteenth Century,” he says. “But no one has seen one for years. It just shows the creativity and ingenuity of the American craft brewer.”

Vitt didn’t set out to create brewing history. He was just trying to follow Matson’s wishes. The publican wanted a pale beer with about six percent alcohol by volume. But he wanted it boiled for 90 minutes (the length of a regulation soccer match), and he wanted it hopped throughout the boil. Finally, he wanted a healthy dose of hops at the end of the boil, in the hop back and during dry hopping.

“For me, it’s all about the nose,” Matson says, taking a big whiff of the beer.

“When the beer was finished, we realized it tasted just like a good IPA,” Vitt said. “But it was pale.”

The brewery is petitioning with the Brewers Association to have the new style included in style guidelines for the Great American Beer Festival and World Beer Cup. “We can’t decide whether it should be called ‘Pale India Pale Ale (PIPA) or India Pale Pale Ale (IP2A),” says Vitt.

Matson lobbied for calling it a Cascadian Pale Ale in a blatant attempt to suck up to Cascadian Beer Sheriff Ezra Johnson-Greenough, but was thwarted when his accountant threatened a trademark infringement action if he used the acronym CPA.

“Because it’s ‘triple-triple hopped,’ with nine hop additions, I thought about being clever and calling it a Kascadian 9-hopped Pale,” Matson says. “But I don’t know if K9P sounds very appetizing on a taphandle.”

No matter what it’s called, the response has been terrific, Matson and Vitt agree. “We can’t make it fast enough,” Vitt says. “We may have to get more tanks just to keep up.”


05 April, 2012