Rather than simply darken up our current IPA, we decided several months ago to design an entirely new beer from the ground up. The beer features our Organic 2-Row base malt accented by additions of Crystal 60 and Weyermann Carafa III malts. This last grain is a special type of de-husked roasted barley imported from Germany that lends a charred black color and notes of roasted coffee and chicory without any tannic bitterness that would normally be contributed by the husks. The hop additions are many and generous, featuring Apollo, Horizon, and Nugget, clocking the beer in at 70 IBU. Over 22 pounds of Nugget hops were added directly to the fermenter in our first ever batch.

The sum of these parts is a befuddling, beautiful beer with an ABV of 7%. Big juicy hop flavors meld with rich roasted malts to create distinctively delicious ale. Hop bitterness is significantly more aggressive than our normal IPA, providing an interesting departure from the hop “niceness” that is our norm, all in all, something worth savoring, though perhaps not for the faint of heart.