Before brewing had even taken over our garage, let alone expanded past that, grace and I moved to our first house together in the Fremont / Ballard neighborhood in 2007. One of our favorite places ever since has been Brouwer’s cafe.
With it’s multitude of taps, great beers and great food, it became a regular haunt for us. We even had our wedding celebration party there! So when we opened our brewery in August 2012, it was extremely humbling that one of the first bars to visit us and put us on tap was Brouwer’s themselves. Within a month of opening, Brouwer’s brought their managers to our brewery to try our beers. They were one of the first places who poured our beer, I even took a picture of the menu when we debuted as it was such a big deal to us. And so since our very early days as a brewery, Brouwer’s, one of the premier beer bars in the city, has supported us throughout.
So when Nat at Brouwer’s asked us to brew their anniversary beer, that was a massive deal for us. And not just any anniversary – their 10th! I certainly felt the pressure that we had to live up to the trust they had put in us.
Brouwer’s wanted a 10% Imperial IPA. Nat wanted a fruit forward hop profile with a juicy body. Specifically, he really likes Mosaic hops – a hop we’ve never used before.
Mosaic is an in demand hop that is really hard to get. We have hop contracts going out to 2020 to get the varieties I specifically like in beers – but we don’t have Mosaic currently in that list. The first two single hop Mosiac beers I tried I really didn’t like – there was something in the finish of them both that didn’t work for me. Then last year I tried Deschute’s Freshly Squeezed IPA, and to me that proved that Mosaic can really work. Since then, I’ve had a number of beers that have really shone with a stone fruit contribution from Mosaic hops. From putting the pieces together, Mosaic can really work as a late addition hop – but I decided to steer clear of bittering with it. A big thank you goes to Manny at Georgetown Brewing for helping us get some Mosaic to make this beer.
And now to the brew itself! Gobsmacked is British slang which literally translates to mean extremely surprised or astonished – and that’s what we are trying to achieve with this brew! Gobsmacked Imperial IPA exudes peach notes in the nose, with a cane sugar sweetness in support. Tangerine comes through in the mid palette, with grapefruit in the finish. A smooth, soft and juicy body provides balance in the finish. Gobsmacked Imperial IPA clocks in at 10.0% ABV and 80 IBUs and will be available at Brouwer’s from Saturday March 28th, our taproom from Sunday the 29th, and Burgundian and Bottleworks on Monday the 30th. We’ve bottled a small number of cases which will be available at Bottleworks from Monday the 30th.
We hope you enjoy the beer. We truly enjoyed making it, and were extremely humbled to be asked. We hope you’ll agree that we brewed a beer fitting of the occasion.
Cheers, Adam