New Beer Friday, Big Brew Day Edition (May 4)

Preamble by Steve Siciliano

If you enjoy hand-crafted beer, if you like being around fun-loving people and if you're interested in learning about the process of homebrewing, we invite you to join a gathering of passionate homebrewers at Trail Point Brewing on Saturday, May 5, in a country-wide observance of National Homebrew Day.

In 1988 the United States Congress decreed that the hobby of brewing beer be added to the list of National Days. In that same year the American Homebrewers Association (AHA) created The Big Brew Day as a way for homebrewers to gather together and celebrate the national recognition of their hobby. AHA Big Brews are held each year at hundreds of venues around the country on the first Saturday in May.

Five years ago Siciliano’s Market sponsored its first Big Brew Day and the event has since become one of West Michigan’s most popular public homebrewing celebrations. This year twenty-six teams of dedicated hobbyists will be brewing batches of Beer City Rye IPA in the brewery's back parking lot. Samples of hand-crafted, homemade beer will be available to those of legal drinking age and, of course, Trail Point's solid lineup of commercial offerings will be available for purchase in the pub.

New and Returning Beer

• Anderson Valley Summer Solstice, $2.19/12oz - "Summer Solstice® is a slightly sweet, malty session beer with a creamy mouth feel and clean finish.  With hints of caramel in the nose and a touch of spice, it’s become affectionately known as “cream soda for adults”. The unique flavors and superior drinkability make for the ultimate refreshment on a hot summer day" (source).
• Bell's Pooltime, $2.09/12oz - "Pooltime Ale is a refreshing Belgian-inspired Wheat Ale with light clove notes. The truly distinguishing feature is the use of 100% Montmorency tart cherries grown in the Traverse City region of Michigan. These cherries add a subtle tartness and bright counterpoint to the other flavors, enhancing Pooltime’s fruity character and making it the perfect beer for all summer activities" (source).
• Big Lake BBA Darkstar, $4.69/16oz (2 per) - "A breakfast style stout brewed with Kona and Sumatra coffee aged on cocoa nibs" (source).
• Boulevard Hibuscus Gose, $1.89/12oz - "Our version of an unusual, yet resurgent, beer style. It pays tribute to the pleasantly sour, slightly salty wheat beers that originated in Goslar and became popular in Leipzig, Germany around the late 1800’s. A great introductory sour beer, Hibiscus Gose receives coriander and sea salt during boiling, then we steep dried hibiscus flowers at the end to create a vibrant pink hue (really, though, it’s pink!). The result is a tangy, sweet and sour ale with a refreshing citrus character" (source).
• Brewery Vivant Lost Minds, $3.79/16oz - "Tart IPA with Citra and Amarillo hops, Grapefruit, and Mint" (source).
• Brewery Vivant Tropical Saison, $3.79/16oz - "Live the good life. Pair great beer with great food and enjoy it with friends and family. Tropical Saison is a summertime reverie, bringing together the best our Midwest sunshine has to offer. A slightly spicy character, light effervescence, and the addition of real pineapple & mango juice make this beer perfect for a Michigan summer. The hop presence lends a complexity to this brew" (source).
• Frankenmuth Lighten Up Francis, $1.89/12oz - "Brewed with traditional Hallertauer hops and German Pils malt, Lighten Up Francis! has a light gold appearance, low bitterness, medium-carbonation and well-attenuated white head. The aroma of this American style Kölsch Ale delivers a pleasantly subtle and grainy-sweet undertone. Imbibers will enjoy a subdued hop presence, refreshing crispness and clean aftertaste" (source).
• Latitude 42 Bubba Kolsch, $2.39/16oz - No commercial description.
• Latitude Nectar of the Goddess, $2.49/16oz - "Nectar of the Goddess is our Unfiltered American Wheat with Blood Oranges, Passion Fruit and Locally Sourced Michigan Honey. When drinking Nectar of the Goddess you get a unique, unfiltered fruity and tart wheat ale flavor perfect for summer" (source).
• New Belgium Hemperor, $2.69/12oz - "Get ready: an exciting new offering that’ll change the way you think about hoppy beers is coming your way. The brewers at New Belgium have created a new style of IPA: The Hemperor HPA. With the popularity of hoppy beers, our brewers are always on the lookout for different hop varieties and the complexities and flavors new strains can bring. That’s where hemp comes into the picture. Without getting too nerdy, we found a unique way to recreate hemp terpene flavors in a beer, which complement the inclusion of hop flavors and hemp hearts (seeds) in a brand new, delicious way—not to mention this beer is extremely dank! The flavors and aromas are so unique that it’s a style unto itself, hence HPA®" (source).
• New Holland Taz, $1.99/12oz - "Inspired by and sourced from the wild world down under, Taz IPA is 'chockers' with some of the world's greatest hops. Galaxy and Nelson Sauvin hops from Australia and New Zealand combine to offer savage bitterness and a touch of fruitiness" (source).
• Odd Side Grapefruit Wheat, $2.19/12oz - "A wheat beer brewed with grapefruit" (source).
• Odd Side Tangerine of My Rye, $2.39/12oz - "Rye IPA with Tangerine Peel Added" (source).
• Pux Kyoodle, $3.19/12oz  - "In 2012 the Schaefer family began planting heirloom and cider apples on the homesteaded family orchard.  At this same time, we started to create small batches of cider.  As the cider started to flow, so did our experience with and enthusiasm for these old cultivars. Currently, Pux Ciders benefit from close to 125 of our apple cultivars. These range from American dessert apples to French and English cider apples. We use these apples to create each unique batch of Pux crafted ciders. We also use other local Michigan products in our ciders, like tart cherries, pears and hops" (source).
• Short's Anniversary, $2.59/12oz - "Anniversary Ale is a dry hopped, high-gravity, Wheat Wine Ale brewed with peppercorns, blood oranges, and orange zest. Flavors range from the spiciness of green peppercorns to the tang of blood orange zest. Aggressive dry hopping of Simcoe hops amplifies the citrus overtones and spiciness found throughout the beer. Anniversary Ale typifies Short’s Brewing Company by embodying all of the complexities that come along with another year of brewing" (source).
• Short's BBA Huma, $13.19/22oz - "Bourbon Barrel Aged Huma Lupa Licious is our best-selling American India Pale Ale aged in bourbon barrels. Initial malt sweetness is replaced with flavors of charred oak and sweet vanilla, followed by the standard Huma hop punch to the palate. This new combination creates the sensation of sipping on a sweet Bourbon that finishes like a bitter hop theme park in your mouth" (source).
• Southern Tier The Psychic Laser, $4.09/16oz - "The third release in our Science is the Art Collection stays with our double IPA theme, but with a twist. We’ve moved away from our house ale yeast in favor of saison’s estery, earthy and spicy notes. We love the way these essential saison characteristics meld with the tropical, fruity, piney and citrusy notes from some of our favorite hops: Mosaic, Equanot, and Simcoe" (source).
• Witches hat Plum Cobbler Saison, $2.59/12oz - "Saison fermented and aged in freshly dumped port and red wine barrels with Cascara and fresh whole plums" (source).

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What do you love about homebrewing?

Cheers!