Those beer nerdy people might be interested in this one. For years, Stone Brewing Co hasn’t used a popular hop called Cascade. You might say – ReallY? Or, so what? Well, Stone has a reason behind that. When the brewery was making Stone Pale Ale back in the 1990’s, another well known brewery was using Cascade in a pale ale – Sierra Nevada. Neither Steve Wagner nor Greg Koch wanted to make anything too close to what the infamous Sierra Nevada Pale Ale was using.
Recently, Stone started using Cascade hops. Most recently, 2012 Stone Old Guardian Barleywine and Bear Republic/Fat Head’s Stone TBA. While the brewery still isn’t using Cascade as the star of the show, it’s still in theses new brews.
Tasting the 2012 Stone Old Guardian Barley Wine, the Cascade hops aren’t immediately apparent. “We added them in at the end with a blend of Calypsoand Chinook,” explains Mitch. “The intent was to add some tropical flavors to the beer, not to draw attention to Cascade specifically.” But in the case of theBear Republic / Fat Head’s / Stone TBA, the Cascade flavor is much more apparent. “That collaboration was based on an old-school style of homebrew called Texas Brown Ale that relied on a mix of Brewers Gold and Cascade hops, so we were able to make it much more pronounced. And I think it came through beautifully.”
Props to you if you knew they weren’t using cascade very much before now. Very impressive. There you have it. [StoneBrew]
