For more than two decades, SweetWater Brewing Company’s best-seller has been its floral 420 Extra Pale Ale, the numerals slyly nodding to the beer’s April 20 birth date and the brewery’s fondness for marijuana: 420 is drug-subculture slang for cannabis.

“We’ve had to hide these things,” said Freddy Bensch, who helped found the Atlanta brewery in 1997.

In June, SweetWater removed the cloak by releasing 420 Strain G13 I.P.A. It mimics the dank pungency of the G13 variety of marijuana — minus the high — by blending hops, hemp flavor and terpenes , organic compounds that are responsible for the distinctive fragrances of plant products from oranges to pine trees to, yes, cannabis.

“There’s nothing better than watching a consumer pop a G13 cap, put it to his nose, take that first smell and see his eyes light up,” Mr. Bensch said. Within two months, G13 became SweetWater’s second-best-selling draft beer available year-round.