It’s much toward evening and I need to sit down with a beer and grill something. And AleSmith Brewing Co‘s PR people have sent me something interesting.
As we skid toward the finale of baseball season, we have a bottle of AleSmith‘s Hall of Fame Imperial San Diego Pale Ale .394. A long name for what is not a short beer. This is based on their 2014 release, San Diego Pale Ale .394, a collaboration of sorts with San Diego Padre Hall of Famer Tony Gwynn. The “.394” refers to his batting average in the 1994 season. This imperial version (9.0% abv) was bottled for California sales the next year, when Tony was voted to Baseball’s Hall of Fame, and now it’s been rolled out nationwide.
This pours a darkish gold, under a thick, parfait-type head. The nose has lots of juicy citrus hop, ad befits a West Coast pale ale, with a note of pine resin just underneath.
The taste is also big on citrus, and carries a note of mango as well. Then there’s the dank pine resin as expected. Luckily, there is plenty of malt to back this one up. And the alcohol is present, giving this a bit of an aperitif feel. I’ve had too many imperial IPAs that I just left in the cellar for too many years. So remembering to get at a fresh one is nice. No phenols, medicinal notes or other off flavors, just a nice smack of hops in profligate proportion and variation, with a malt background to set it off.
This is a sipping beer, one you’ll be able to nurse for most of the length of those upcoming playoff games.
