For the Love of Citrus...IPAs

We're coming into the height of citrus season and while I love a juicy, red grapefruit to start off and brighten dreary winter days, come later in the day I want my grapefruit to come from a bottle. No, I don't want a glass of grapefruit juice, what I want is a citrus-forward IPA bursting with bright flavor up front, finishing with a pithy bitterness.

One of my current favorites and a great local representation of this is Lompoc Pamplemousse Citrus IPA. In addition to four hop varieties - Centennial, Chinook, Meridian and Tettnang, they also use actual grapefruit juice to create the combination of citrus pop and delicious bitterness that makes my taste buds sing.

In case you were wondering about the name, "pamplemousse" isn't just some long, slightly odd word that Lompoc created but is actually the French word for grapefruit. Fitting, right? From there Lompoc has had some fun with things, creating a mascot, Sir Pamplemousse, which you may have seen at local Lompoc events. He's the leader of the Kingdom of Lompoc and according to "legend" a scurvy old French sea captain was the first to discover grapefruit on the island of Barbados, to which Lompoc celebrates with this beer.

Clocking in at an almost-sessionable 5.8% ABV there's plenty of flavor bang packed into a beer that you can enjoy more than just one of. Perhaps tonight would be a good night to do just that. I mean look at the colors on the label, looks like a "Go, Ducks!" kind of beer to me.

Pizza Beer

I'm a beer geek (some may say "snob") and I'm ok with that label. That being said over the past year I've come to have a greater appreciation for "lesser" beers in certain circumstances. I'm talking about beers like Rainier and Old German which are what they are yet I'd still order them over the BMC equivalents I drank in high school in the right situation.

Delicious Canadian bacon, pineapple & jalapeno BYO

Last week we paid a visit to Apizza Scholls, something that was long overdue. After sharing a pitcher of Firestone Walker's Pale 31 at the bar I was looking for something different when we were finally seated at a table. They don't have an extensive beer menu (which is fine, they're a pizza joint, not a craft beer bar) and nothing was really catching my eye. Then I noticed something under the can/bottle section that I hadn't heard of - Narragansett Lager. Of course the first thing I did was consult Untappd and unsurprisingly the 5% North American Adjunct Lager had a 2.94 average out of 35,421 check-ins. I scrolled through check-ins looking for comments and upon coming upon Rich's, "Perfect pizza beer," I knew I had to give it a go.

Ordering it, our server immediately commented that this is the "Jaws" beer. Although I've seen Jaws, it wasn't until a buddy I was there with sent me the clip from the movie the next day that the scene was solidified in my mind. But back to the beer. As the Untappd description noted, this is an adjunct lager and there's no getting around the corn flavor. So while this isn't one I'll be enjoying can after can on its own, I have to agree with Rich that it is indeed a good beer with pizza.

Maybe I'll have to see about getting my hands on a few more cans the next time I'm in a Jaws mood and settle in with a pie.

Happy New Year!

We rang in the New Year quietly, as is our usual fashion, never having been into dressing up and whooping it up with the amateur hour crowd. Heck we didn't even see the clock roll over to 12:01 am. Instead my first waking hours of the New Year were refreshed ones, followed by a day of watching bowl games, enjoying beer and hanging out at our usual.

One of the highlights of the game viewing/potluck at The BeerMongers was my third beer of 2015 - Drake's Brewing Black Robusto Porter. It wasn't a new-to-me beer, having first tried it a couple weeks earlier, but it was one of the best porters I've had. Pulling up my previous Untappd check in I had commented, "Oh yeah, almost cold coffee/hot choc."

I was as pleased with it the second time around and possibly more so in that I had it in my glass when the pecan pie got cut into. Pecan pie is my favorite pie by far yet being held in such high regard I didn't give much thought to how it would taste with this porter until I slowed the shoveling of forkfuls to sip my beer. Wow. Really wow.

So if you're a pecan pie fan like me I highly encourage you to have a bottle of this on hand the next time you're enjoying it. And if you decide I'm wrong, holler and I'll be over to finish both your beer and pie off.