Feature Beer Friday: Tin Roof's Côte Ouest IPA

By Eric Ducote

Good morning everyone, on this beautiful first day of Fall!  Oh wait, it's still a billion degrees outside, but at least it's football season, right?  And at least cold cooler weather is on the way!  So I've been told, next weekend should finally start to feel a little like Fall, but this weekend is going to feel a little like the surface of the Sun.  

For today's Feature Beer I went back to local brewery Tin Roof for their latest specialty release, the Côte Ouest IPA, brewed in collaboration with Blake Winchell and Bill Childress of Brasseurs A La Maison.  As the name suggests, this is a traditional American IPA in the West coast style as opposed to the trendy New England style that's all the rage right now.  That means more malt balance, more bittering hops, and usually less back end dry hopping.  It also traditionally means a departure from the hazy "juicy" feel of the NE style, although this particular example retained some haziness.  

The Côte Ouest is draft only, but the batch resulted in about 10 barrels of finished product, so expect to see it on tap at the Tin Roof taproom for several more weeks as well.  Since cans weren't available, I grabbed a crowler on my last visit to try later.  First thing though, check out that fancy tap handle!  Apparently Blake didn't even know he was going to be features so prominently until he showed up to the release party, so I guess the joke is on him.  

Tin Roof's Cote Ouest IPA

On to the beer!  First the stats... 7.5% abv which is right at the cut off between IPA and DIPA, and approximately 70 IBU.  The pour is a dark orange-ish color with a bubbly white head and a decent amount of haze.  The hop aroma is still strong but more floral and traditionally bitter rather than citrus.  The taste is strongly bitter, and despite the darker color, there isn't a huge malt presence, rather the Cascade, Centennial, Chinook, and Amarillo hops come through with a combination of floral and piney bitterness with still a hint of citrus but not an overpowering presence.  All four of those hop varieties are produced in the Pacific NW and are prominent in the American IPA's surge in popularity, so it's great to see them used so generously in this beer.  

This won't be on tap for too long, so if you like hoppy bitterness and are looking for a change of pace and a bit of a throwback, head over to Tin Roof and give this a taste.  Cheers! 

Feature Beer Friday: Homebrewed Peach Hoppler Milkshake IPA

By Eric Ducote

Hello everyone, and welcome to my first homebrewed edition of Feature Beer Friday.  Normally I'd never feature a homebrew because it's not something that most people reading this would be able to try, but this instance is a little different.  This beer was brewed by my team for the Iron Brewer competition put on by Brasseurs A La Maison that was intended to take place last weekend.  Unfortunately due to circumstances beyond our club's control the event had to be canceled, but there is still hope that it will be back later in 2018.  The event has been put on the last 5 years at Tin Roof Brewing to benefit the Greater Baton Rouge Food Bank, but ATC rules prohibit a brewery from hosting a special event.  Don't worry though, there's a good chance the event isn't dead, but the late cancellation did mean that I had a whole keg of our beer to drink as it's going to need to be re-brewed in order to ensure maximum freshness when the even returns. 

The Peach Hoppler banner. 

As you can almost certainly tell from the banner above, my team (consisting of myself and Mandi, Brenton Day, Brandon Thomsen, and Marcus Rutherford) was assigned peaches and cinnamon toast crunch as the mystery "iron brewer" ingredients, and we decided to turn that into a peach cobbler IPA, named Peach Hoppler.  We used a box of cinnamon toast crunch in the mash per 5 gallons, added a lot of hops in addition to some lactose, and then finished it off with even more cinnamon, some vanilla, and the peaches.  The result is a peach and cinnamon inspired milkshake IPA, bursting with citrus hop flavors that compliment the peach and cinnamon toast crunch and are supported with a slightly sweet milk and vanilla base, not unlike the ice cream complimenting a peach cobbler.  

A pour of Peach Hoppler.

This homebrew turned out really delicious, so I sincerely hope that we will get a chance to put on a take 2 of Iron Brewer to share this with a lot of the readers out there, and also more importantly to raise a lot of support for the Greater Baton Rouge Food Bank.  

Feature Beer Friday: Southern Craft's Three Generation Tripel

By Eric Ducote

Hey everyone!  I hope you have all had a fantastic week... this morning I'm featuring a beer from Southern Craft Brewing, out of Baton Rouge.  Unlike the last two from Tin Roof, this beer should (if you're reading this promptly) still be available on tap at the Southern Craft taproom out on Airline Hwy. near Barringer Foreman.  Southern Craft became Baton Rouge's second active craft brewery back in 2015 and has been brewing several flagship beers plus a few seasonals ever since.

Last night, they debuted a new specialty brew, the Three Generation Tripel which was a collaboration between the Southern Craft brewmasters and local homebrewers Blake and his father Craig Winchell.  Both of them are members of the Brasseurs A La Maison club locally and they named the beer in honor of the two homebrewers plus Blake's son Brennan.  The beer is brewed primarily with pilsner malt spiked with some Belgian candy sugar, with some noble hallertauer hops to balance out the sweetness.  The Belgian yeast gives some traditional esters and leaves the beer with 8% abv.

My first thought was that the color was spot on for the Tripel style, which trends lighter in color than the dubbel and quad Belgian styles.  Traditionally Tripels are of medium strength with lighter color and body and more floral hoppiness than the other Belgian styles.  The appearance is spot on, and so is the aroma, with some sweet notes combined with earthy and flowery hop notes.

The taste is a solid follow through on the aroma, with the sweet candy sugar notes taking a little more of a starring role along with the sweet bubble gum esters from the Belgian yeast.  All of the flavors balance together well and leave a slight lingering sugary sweetness with hints of flowers.  In my opinion, this is one of the best Southern Craft beers to date, so if you are free Friday afternoon, go check out the taproom from 5-9 and you should be able to find some of this still on tap. While you're there, be sure to check out their other current seasonal beers, the Citeaux Oatmeal Coffee Stout, and the Hyla IPA.