To IPA-infinity and Beyond?

Dick Cantwell, co-founder of Seattle’s Elysian Brewing and now co-owner of San Francisco’s Magnolia Brewing, has heard the question many times.

“People have often asked me, and not just in connection to this book, what’s next after IPAs,” said Cantwell, author of “Brewing Eclectic IPA” (Brewers Publications, $19.95). “There will be plenty of stuff that’s next but there’s nothing after IPA.

“Once your palate has been calibrated to that kind of intensity and boldness, it’s hard to go back.”

India Pale Ale is less a style than a range of styles — there are white IPAs, black IPAs, fruit IPAs, sour IPAs, etc. — linked by potentcy (6 to 8 percent alcohol) and an emphasis on assertive hops.


“There will continue to be explorations,” Cantwell said.

In late 2017, for instance, Kim Sturdavant of San Francisco’s Social Kitchen and Brewery made an IPA with enzymes that delivered a light, dry body, with pinprick bubbles. The “Brut IPA” quickly took off in the Bay Area — and beyond.

“It’s been really fun,” said Cantwell, whose next batch of Bombay Brut is fermenting. “I get emails from folks all the time, ‘Tell me how to do this?’”

Kings of Beer

When Clint Eastwood’s “Unforgiven” debuted, Roger Ebert saddled it with a mediocre two-star review. A decade later, the critic reconsidered and enshrined this Western in his “Great Movies” pantheon.


Stone IPA (6.9 percent alcohol by volume) is my “Unforgiven.” I reviewed it in 1997, when this ale was new and I was a craft beer rookie. I pronounced it “for confirmed hopheads only.”

This enormous platter, heaped high with grilled black stuff? That’s the crow I’ve been eating for decades.

Revisiting the beer this week, I found that my original review was right about one thing: this is a hop-forward ale, spritzed with grapefruit and orange notes and pine sap oiliness. These days, I’m also picking up butterscotch and wheat toast flavors in the background. But those hops? They’re magnificent.

Best of the Week, Local

Three beers I’m looking forward to at this weekend’s San Diego International Beer Festival:


Pizza Port: Strong Ale Blend 2017 (Barrel Aged). Some of San Diego’s best barrel-aged beers come from The Lost Abbey — a division of Pizza Port.

Rouleur: Domestique. Rouleur’s been on an award-winning roll, and this Belgian-style blonde took a bronze medal at this year’s World Beer Cup.

Wild Barrel: Space Juice. I haven’t had a bad beer yet from Wild Barrel, the joint venture of “Dr.” Bill Sysak, Stone’s former beer ambassador, and ace brewer Bill Sobieski.

The festival’s five sessions are noon to 4 p.m. and 5 to 9 p.m. Friday; 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. and 4 to 8 p.m. Saturday; and noon to 4 p.m. Sunday. Tickets start at $60 and can be ordered at sandiegobeerfestival.com/tickets.


Closing the Book on 2017

Stone is up, Ballast is down — that’s the San Diego-centric news extracted from data recently released by the Brewers Association, a national trade group.

New Brewer, the association’s magazine, revealed final 2017 production numbers for five local breweries. (For those keeping score, one barrel of beer equals 31 gallons).

Stone. The Escondido-based brewery had a great year, selling 397,000 barrels or 15 percent more than in 2016. CEO Dominic Engels noted that this is a company-wide total, including beer made at Stone’s numerous brewpubs, plus its satellite breweries in Richmond, Va., and Berlin, Germany.

Ballast Point. Ouch. The Miramar brewery, owned by New York’s Constellation Brands, saw a 13 percent drop in sales, finishing with 377,000 barrels. I’m not sure what happened — Ballast Point officials could not be reached by press time.


Karl Strauss. A solid year for San Diego’s oldest craft brewery, selling 82,014 barrels, a 4 percent rise.

Green Flash. The Miramar brewery’s woes, as noted here and elsewhere, resulted in founders Mike and Lisa Hinkley losing control to an outside investors group — this year. Last year? A 10 percent drop in sales, down to 72,254 barrels.

Saint Archer. Like Ballast Point, this local brewery is owned by an out-of-town corporation (in this case, MillerCoors). Unlike Ballast Point, Saint Archer had a swell ’17, with sales up 62 percent to 43,500 barrels.

Saint Archer at 5

At the risk of losing my craft beer bonafides, I dropped by Miramar last Saturday for Saint Archer’s fifth anniversary party. Since MillerCoors bought this brewery in 2015, it’s been an outcast in local beer circles. Critics note — justifiably — that brewing conglomerates seek to undermine local, independent breweries by all methods, fair or foul.


Being a journalist, though, I’m obligated to cover the entire beer scene. And Saint Archer continues to make interesting beers. I especially enjoyed the Mandarina Pale Ale (5 percent), the brewery’s most recent release, and the smashing Tusk & Grain Coconut Stout (13.4 percent). So sue me.

Words to Drink By

“If he can say as you can/ Guinness is good for you/ How grand to be a Toucan/ Just think what Toucan do!” — advertising jingle by Dorothy L. Sayers, better known for her Lord Peter Wimsey mysteries. Today is the 125th anniversary of the British novelist and ad copy writer’s birth.


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Twitter: @peterroweut

peter.rowe@sduniontribune.com