Short Pours: Boulevard Brewing Company Edition
If you’re anything like me, the beginning of a new year
can provide a very rude awakening.
By now your tree has probably been taken down, decorations have been put
away and the only leftovers still around the house are stale, broken cookies at
the bottom of a ceramic snowman cookie jar. With the holidays in the rearview mirror, the reality of
enduring the next couple months of cold, harsh winter weather starts to set in. The anticipation for Spring starts to build but only seems to make the days and weeks
drag on more than usual.
I’m here to tell you to keep your chin up though. Over the past few weeks our friends at Boulevard Brewing Company have released a plethora of news that should excite any craft beer fan and have them looking forward to what is on the horizon for 2015.
Let’s
take a look at some of the recent announcements:
Boulevard Brewing Company 2015
Release Calendar
Boulevard
has published their release calendar for 2015 which includes 12 new beers slated
to debut throughout the year. The
calendar shows two new IPAs scheduled to join the rotation as Heavy Lifting IPA
will become part of the Core Year-Round releases and The Calling IPA (more on
this one in a bit) joins the Smokestack Year-Round offerings.
Boulevard’s Core Seasonal lineup will see three new beers
added which include Spring Belle Saison, Funky Pumpkin and Snow and Tell. You’ll also notice that Hibiscus Gose
will make its return this year as part of the Core Seasonal lineup.
In addition to these, Boulevard’s Smokestack Specialty
series will see a number of new releases this year. Boulevard plans on releasing four variations of their
Imperial Stout. The first two
variations have already been announced.
The first release will be infused with Ethiopian Sidamo coffee from the
Roasterie and the second release will be aged in rum barrels. These variants are scheduled for a
February and June release respectively.
This year will also see the release of not one, but two new Love Child beers,
No. 5 and 6, along with Collaboration No. 5.
Of course as more information regarding these becomes
available we will be sure to pass it along.
The Calling IPA
As mentioned above, Boulevard will
introduce The Calling IPA as part of their Smokestack Year-Round lineup this
year. Jeremy Danner, Boulevard’s
Ambassador Brewer, describes The Calling as “an IPA with a juicy, tropical
fruit aroma that leaps from the glass.
A simple malt base composed solely of our two row base malt serves as a
platform for giant, punchy hop flavor and aroma provided by a blend of Simcoe,
Bravo, Topaz, Cascade, Mosaic, Equinox, Galaxy and Amarillo hops.” Jeremy adds
“The Calling also receives an addition of lemon peel during the last five
minutes of the boil to add an extra citrusy punch.”
The
Calling is expected to be available on draft in mid-February with four packs of
twelve ounce bottles to follow shortly there after. The Calling has an 8.5% ABV and 75 IBU.
Boulevard Tasting Room – Blonde
Ale
Another beer
you will be able to get your hands on this year from Boulevard will be their
Tasting Room Blonde Ale. This beer
will only be available as part of the Boulevard Sample Twelve variety packs
though so you won’t find it on their release schedule above. The Tasting Room series is a great
chance to try some of Boulevard’s test production beers if you aren’t able to
make it down to the brewery often.
New Bottle Codes
To go
along with all the new beer being released this year, you may also notice something
different about the information on the actual bottle. Boulevard has decided to start printing a more consumer
friendly date on the bottle that will show when the beer was bottled along with
a ‘best by’ date that is currently being used.
The
format for the information will read as this:
LMMDDDYY
HHMM BBT
BEST
BY MM/DD/YYYY
The
top line beginning with ‘L’, which stands for ‘lot’, will show the month, day
and year along with time the beer was bottled. The letters ‘BBT’ will be replaced with a letter A through F
that will indicate which bright beer tank that beer was packaged.
So
in the example below, L010515 822 A will let you know this beer was bottled on
January 5th, 2015 at 8:22 AM from bright beer tank A.
As you can see, Boulevard obviously
has some big plans in store for 2015.
After seeing this news and knowing what there is to look forward to this
year, it makes these long, winter months a little easier to tolerate.