Feature Beer Friday: Melvin's 2X4 Double IPA

By Eric Ducote

Hello everyone, and welcome to another Feature Beer Friday!  This might be my last one for a few weeks due to upcoming knee surgery, but it certainly won't be my last post ever.  This week's feature is the 2X4 DIPA from Melvin Brewing out of Alpine, Wyoming.  I found a selection of their beers last weekend in Florida at a Total Wine store.  Apparently Total Wine in Florida contracted with Melvin a large enough order to make a one-time distribution to the state.  A pretty good idea if you ask me, if the demand is there for a certain brewery and that brewery can meet the supply, why not make a special order?  

Melvin Brewing started off as a nanobrewery in the back of a Thai restaurant and has grown into a powerhouse in the NW part of our country.  The 2X4 DIPA, which won a gold medal at the Great American Beer Festival in 2012 to really put Melvin Brewing on the map nationally.  It's a 10% ABV, 100+ IBU beer loaded with American hops such as Columbus, Centennial, Citra, and Simcoe.

Melvin Brewing's 2X4 DIPA

The first thing I notice is the slight haze to the pour.  This is certainly not brewed in the NEIPA style, but it's not filtered clear either.  It's a little on the copper/orange side for color, with as you can see a prominent frothy head.  The aroma is pure hop joy, with pine notes coming through strong as well as citrus.  It's an excellent blend of hops, with multiple layers of flavor shining through, and that extends to the taste as well.  The malts are there, but they lay low and allow the hops to shine through, with even more pine and citrus flavors bursting through every sip.  This is a phenomenal DIPA, and I feel like it really serves as a bridge between the old school malty IBU heavy double IPAs and the trendy hazy NEIPAs.  This beer really allows the hops to shine through without making them the only performer in the show.

I know this one won't be easy to find around Baton Rouge, but if you do see some or get the chance to try it, don't pass it up.  Cheers! 

Feature Beer Friday: Tin Roof's Voodoo Pale Ale

By Eric Ducote

Tin Roof's Voodoo Pale Ale

Good morning everyone!  It's Friday, so let's talk a little beer.  Originally I wasn't planning on going back to back with the Tin Roof beers, but that was before the news broke last Saturday that Tin Roof Brewing captured the first ever gold medal at the Great American Beer Festival for the state of Louisiana with their Voodoo Pale Ale!  They won in the Juicy or Hazy Pale Ale category, which featured a whopping 132 entrants.  

Voodoo has been around in some form since Tin Roof's beginning, originally labeled as the Voodoo Bengal Pale Ale it was one of the original flagship brews next to the Perfect Tin Amber.  The original recipe was more of a balanced pale ale, with caramel and crystal malts providing a base and plenty of bittering hops throughout.  A few years ago the recipe was changed up completely and the "Bengal" was dropped from the name, giving us the Voodoo Pale Ale and the current look of the cans and tap handles.  Chuck P even wrote a blog post about it! Since then the recipe has undergone a few more tweaks until you have the current iteration of the Voodoo Pale Ale, which can now add GABF Gold Medal winner to its resume.  

The current recipe is even simpler than the interim version, with pale malt serving as the lone base malt and then malted oats, flaked oats, and wheat malt added as specialty grains to give some body and contribute to the haziness.  The hops were reduced to a simple combination of Citra and Simcoe, giving a combination of citrus and tropical fruit flavors from the Citra (duh!) and pine flavors from the Simcoe.  It's a sessionable 5% abv and a palate-pleasing 20 IBU with the vast majority of the hops going in as later additions and dry-hopping.  

I'm sure most of you out there reading this have tried Voodoo and plenty of you likely keep some around in your beer fridge on a regular basis, but if you haven't had one recently, don't hesitate to grab a 6-pack and give it another try.  Winning any sort of medal is a huge deal at GABF, but winning a gold in such a highly contested category should absolutely be celebrated.  

So congrats to Tin Roof, and Cheers! 

The Great American Beer Boom: Jay's Beer Journey

Back in October, many of you will remember that I set out on a craft beer adventure to the Great American Beer Festival in Denver and then on to check out some breweries in San Diego.  What might have slipped through the cracks is that I made a stop in Louisiana as well, and that my buddy Tommy Talley of tommysTV came along with me on the journey... with a camera.  Here's a story that tells what I found out about the relationship between craft brewers and their wholesalers:

Greg Koch of the Stone Brewing Co. poses with a beer and Jay Ducote