Friday, December 30, 2011

Santa Fe's Dark Side

What, you say? Santa Fe doesn't have a dark side. In fact, the city has an abundance of people who proudly strut their stuff around the Plaza while wearing their Southwestern technicolor dreamcoats and decorate their Subarus with bumper stickers in all the colors of the rainbow. Thankfully, Santa Fe does have some people who are still living on Earth, namely homebrewer John Rowley, who collaborated with Santa Fe Brewing's Tony Cordova to create the new Black IPA. I have written before that the style is not one of my favorites, as I usually end up thinking how much better the beer would be without the roasty malt flavor. However, I got a chance to try the Rowley/Santa Fe version and was very pleased with the beer. Though the color fit the name, the hops were the star, with maybe a hint of chocolate malt coming through. Not a surprise, I guess, considering that the recipe uses Columbus, Simcoe, Amarillo and Citra hops and is 92 IBUs. This 7.1% ABV beer will not be on the shelves in Albuquerque, as it is an experimental first run batch, so put on that turquoise belt buckle and trek up to either Santa Fe's Tasting Room or Eldorado Tap House, where the beer is available on tap and in bottles.

2 comments:

Adam said...

Tasty stuff, definitely a little different in the bottle.

Anonymous said...

How is the bottle version? I haven't tried it yet. It should be different as it is bottle conditioned/carbonated whereas the tap variant is force carbonated. The two methods will definitely make a slightly different beer.