First Half of 2022: 10 Delicious Craft Beers
Following the 10 pints of 2021 that I wrote about at the beginning of this year, this time I have selected 10 pints that I enjoyed in the first half of 2022 and written about each of them.
Pera Del Sol / Mission Trail
(Although this is not a beer, starting with the first one) I think my biggest discovery in the first half of 2022 was encountering delicious ciders (apple wine) and perries (pear wine). I have occasionally drunk cider for a long time, and looking back, I have enjoyed it at places like Magners in Ireland and the apple festival at Kivik in Sweden, but this was my first time tasting it in earnest at a taproom or similar venue.
Among them, this Pera Del Sol is a blend of apple juice and perry made by fermenting pears. It had a wonderfully floral aroma derived from the pears, a crisp green fruit flavor that is also common in cider—perhaps because it contains apples—and a rich honey flavor that can be tasted in the background, yet it had a dry finish that was impressively delicious.
The Mission Trail Cider taproom is located in an area called Shandon near Paso Robles, and besides cider and perry, you can taste many types of fruit wines, such as Jerkum made with stone fruits. Also, depending on the timing, there are places in San Francisco that carry Mission Trail, and I have had it on draft at Beer Nerds, and I have also seen cans and bottles for sale at City Beer Store.
Playing for Keeps / The Rare Barrel
An ale aged in oak barrels with passion fruit, orange, and guava by The Rare Barrel (TRB), a sour-specialty brewery in the East Bay. TRB makes a wide variety of barrel-aged sours, some with strong tartness and others with weak, and as you can imagine from the fruits used, this is a beer where the fruitiness is completely at the forefront rather than the tartness. Although the aroma is slightly less intense than nectarine or peach, it had a good balance with sweetness and was very easy to drink. After that, this bottle was also released, so I hurriedly bought a few.
Continuing from last year, I am an Ambassador of Sour member, so I am looking forward to drinking their new sours. I was able to drink this beer when I visited the brewery to pick up the bottles.
Their sours taste completely different when drunk from a glass with a thin rim like a wine glass that allows you to properly enjoy the aroma, so I recommend drinking it that way.
Big Chicken DIPA / Henhouse Brewing
HenHouse Brewing Co. is a brewery located in Santa Rosa, about a 45-minute drive north of San Francisco. Founded in 2013, it is a brewery that is well-regarded for its very clean IPAs in the Bay Area, while also excelling at saisons and Belgians. The beer that HenHouse releases once a year during San Francisco Beer Week (SFBW) is this Big Chicken TIPA. It is a beer focused on freshness that can only be drunk at the taproom for just three days.As HenHouse hosts an event called Freshtival
where over 60 participating breweries provide only fresh beer made within a week, this is the ultimate expression of that commitment.
The recipe is different every year, and in 2022, it used Mosaic, Talus, Idaho 7, and Comet hops, with the dankness of a textbook West Coast TIPA and a strength of 10%. This flavor is truly addictive. In previous years, I have often been able to drink it on draft at the right time, but this year I had it from a can that a beer friend brought.HenHouse is also famous for its Fresh Pots coffee saison and Stoked!, a single-hop pale ale.
Follow the Glow TIPA / Temescal Brewing
Temescal Brewing, located in the Temescal district of the East Bay, was famous for its easy-drinking, light pale ales and hazy IPAs, but the beer they released for SF Beer Week was this 10% triple IPA. Using large amounts of El Dorado, Mosaic, and Nectaron, they have crafted a wonderful beer that allows you to feel the aroma of pineapple and peach while still having a proper dankness and not making you feel the high alcohol content.
City Beer Store holds a TIPA-exclusive blind tasting and voting event every year during SF Beer Week, and this Follow the Glow came in second place (first place was Humble Sea's Walrus Whirlpool). We also held a blind tasting at our home, and this was the clear winner.
Temescal Brewing is famous for having a lot of support from the LGBTQ+ community, and you can drink beer on a wonderful sunny patio in the East Bay, so I highly recommend visiting at least once.
Atlas of Dark Seas / Humble Sea
The first bottle of the 2022 Humble Sea bottle club, Kooks Club, is this Atlas of Dark Seas. It is a blend of three types of stout: a stout aged for 21 months in Buffalo Trace barrels, a stout aged for 14 months in Buffalo Trace barrels, and a stout aged for 26 months in bourbon barrels with vanilla, then flavored with coconut and vanilla. The finished imperial stout is incredibly smooth, with a great balance of caramel, biscuit, coconut, and chocolate. If I had to describe it, it's like a brownie for adults, a dark chocolate that isn't too sweet. As it warms up in your mouth, the coconut and vanilla pop. It was a wonderful beer that disappeared in an instant, even though you could feel the 11.5% high alcohol content.
I feel like this is the first Kooks Club bottle with a wonderful finish in a long time, following the very enthusiastic first year in 2020.
It's also nice that it comes with a card with tasting notes written on it.
Considering the barrel-aging time, was this the last Kooks bottle that Drew, who moved to Sante Adairius, worked on at Humble Sea?
Small Batch Apricot Beer 2021 / Russian River Brewing Co.
Starting in 2022, I was able to join the Russian River Brewing Co. (RRBC) bottle club, Cellar Society, and among the several bottles in the first half of the year, my favorite was this Small Batch Series Apricot Beer 2021. Surprisingly, this is RRBC's first beer using apricots.
It is a blend of beer naturally fermented in the Sonoma environment and beer aged in wine barrels from Silver Oak, famous for its wine, and aged for 11 months with apricots. It has a complexity and depth as if you can taste every part of the apricot, including the skin and the fruit. Even though it uses apricots, it is a beer with a different approach than Sante Adairius's West Ashley. The fact that the taste changes completely depending on the approach, even with the same fruit, is exactly what makes this style interesting.
Incidentally, the connection with Silver Oak is deep, and Natalie from RRBC used to work in the Silver Oak tasting room. Since it is a 2-bottle set, I decided to cellar the other one and enjoy the change in flavor.
Pliny the Younger TIPA / Russian River Brewing Co.
I hesitated to include it because it's such a seasonal staple, but the draft version for the first time in two years was truly delicious, and since I figured out how to drink it at the brewery with less waiting time this year, it made the list.
Familiar to anyone who loves West Coast American beer, Pliny the Younger is the ultimate dank Triple IPA released by Russian River Brewing only once a year. I'll leave the details for you to read in the note article below, but it was once again a beer that was incredibly delicious and got me incredibly drunk.
Old Hobnoblydoblin / Wondrous
Wondrous, where Mr. Wynn, who has brewing experience at places like Sante Adairius, serves as head brewer, is one of the fastest-growing breweries in the Bay Area. A recent characteristic of this place is that they have a huge variety of lagers and pilsners. While they might only have two or three IPAs, they sometimes have about six taps connected to helles, pilsners, and the like.
Even for Wondrous, this English-style barleywine, Old Hobnoblydoblin, was exceptionally delicious. After being aged in stainless steel for about a year, it developed a deep flavor that highlights fruit notes and caramel malt (I learned at Toronado that beers with 'Old' in the name are usually barleywines). It was the first beer for which Wondrous produced a second batch.
I was tempted by others like the Lasting Love Imperial Dark Lager and Wondrous Hell Helles, but I chose this one for its impact.
I think Wondrous is one of the breweries to watch right now.
Love Beer / Schneider Weisse
One of the places I newly discovered in the first half of the year was Radhaus, where I drank this beer. It's a restaurant where you can drink German beer while looking out over the San Francisco Bay, and it feels absolutely wonderful if you visit on a sunny day.
The day I visited was one where I could enjoy that San Franciscan sunshine, and the beer I ordered first was this one. Love Beer, a summer-exclusive golden wheat beer by Schneider Weisse. The aroma of elderflower and stone fruit, combined with a light sweetness at the end, is exquisite and perfect for the crisp heat. I don't usually drink wheat beers like hefeweizen, but this was truly delicious and is one of the beers I definitely want to go drink again.
A Voice to Say / Sante Adairius Rustic Ales
This is A Voice to Say, one of the bottles for SARA's Cellar from Sante Adairius Rustic Ales. It's a saison double-barrel aged using peaches and nectarines from Matsumoto Farm. The moment I drank it, I shouted, 'Ah, that's the Sante taste!' It's overflowing with fruit, and the finish lingers long after you've finished drinking.
It has a fruitiness similar to West Ashley and the like, but rather than tartness, the aroma and the freshness of the fruit are at the forefront.
Sante Adairius had many hits in the first half of the year, and Past Remembered, Anaïs, and Like Minds were also candidates, but this was the one that ultimately remained. It's that memorable of a bottle.
Other delicious beers
The following beers were also delicious, but unfortunately, they didn't make the top ten. Since it also depends on the atmosphere when I drank them (including whether I wasn't too drunk to remember the taste), these are beers I'd like to drink again if I have the chance to see them.
The Porcupine and the Snakes (Gruit) / Mad Fritz
Dank of the Dead (West Coast IPA) / Slice
Stoney Logger (Hoppy Lager) / Cellarmaker x Wondrous
A Deal with the Devil (Triple Oaked Barleywine) / Anchorage Brewing
Summary
Compared to last year, I had more opportunities to drink at breweries and beer bars, and since I'm also in multiple bottle clubs, I think the results reflect the many opportunities I had to drink such limited bottles.
Also, perhaps because I tasted various things and my desire for further exploration grew, the range of beer types I drank expanded, and I had delicious discoveries within each, making for a fulfilling six months.
Hoping to encounter another delicious glass in the second half of the year, Cheers!
For your reference, here are the 10 pints from 2021 ↓