This has been a bad evening at Beeronaut Mission Control. Our guinea pig Mr. Whiskers passed on after we cared for him just over a year; he had been re-homed from another family that was getting a dog, and was at least 4 years old, about the limit for such critters. Much sadness all around. But I don’t want to dwell on it too much here, because it’d detract from the main topic: enjoying a new beer.
Goose Island Beer Co. has put out a release of its 312 Urban Wheat Ale with additional dry-hopping. Like the regular 312, it has 4.2% abv, but has only 2 more IBU’s than the base beer (20 vs 18). That extra bit of bitterness comes from dry-hopping on Saaz hops. That means hops have been added during the fermentation. The cooler temperatures, compared to hops added at boiling, help keep the aromatic qualities of noble hops like Saaz, or of flavorful American hops. So I would expect there’ll be a slight difference in taste. Goose Island sent me some of the new Dry-Hopped 312, so I picked up a regular 312 to compare.
While waiting for the foam to settle, I took a sniff from the containers. The original 312 has always had a mild, but slightly spicy nose, going back to its original purpose as an “entry” beer. The Dry-Hopped can shows a bit of a grassy hop aroma, a little like a hopped up Pilsener. In identical glasses, the Dry-Hopped is a little bit hazier, and the foam leaves a bit more lace as it settles down.
Tasting the original 312 reminds me what I liked about it originally: just a bit of a spicy notes from the wheat malt. I’m not certain why they want to promote its “light lemon aroma” on the label, since that’s not the strongest part of it. The spiciness is actually missing the in the dry-hopped version. And I’m also noticing a lot less carbonation in the dry-hopped 312. It’s more along the lines of a nitro stout. Perhaps there was a secondary fermentation expected here. And I do get a little more that lemony note than they talk about in the original 312. So it is a pretty different beer from the original 312. The difference could be that the Dry-Hopped was made in Chicago, while the original could have been in any of the various Anheuser-Busch facilities.
I found the beers to be quite different when compared side-by-side. The Dry-Hopped 312 has a more specialized appeal. Josh Noel reported in the Tribune that the Dry-Hopped is part of an effort by Goose Island to get back some of its appeal as an urban brewery (to heck with this “mountain water” jazz) with a series of smaller releases in 16 ounce cans, the preferred vessel of the craft beer cognoscenti. Already they plan to go back for a second release. This could be a good start.
Disclaimer: The Dry-Hopped 312 was sent to me by Goose Island for comment.
