Alpine Aloha IPA Returns With a Matching Dog Leash

Alpine Aloha IPA is back on shelves at South Lake Brewing Company, returning for another summer with a refreshed can design and matching Tahoe tropical apparel. The West Coast IPA is built on five hops - Cascade, Chinook, Citra, Mosaic, and Simcoe - which the brewery says gives it classic pine and dank-herb character alongside sticky tropical fruit and juicy citrus.

At 6.6 percent ABV, it sits comfortably in West Coast IPA territory. The name is a fair summary of the beer's split personality, an alpine, Tahoe-mountain profile paired with tropical, Hawaiian-shirt energy, which South Lake is leaning into this year with a shirt, dog leash, and collar that all match the can.

Thinking about the hops and flavor profile

Five hops is a wide bill for a West Coast IPA, a style that more often leans on two or three to keep its resinous, dank-and-pine identity clear. Cascade and Chinook are the classic West Coast anchors, contributing the pine, herbal, and evergreen backbone; Citra, Mosaic, and Simcoe are the newer-school additions layered on top, bringing the tropical fruit and citrus that pull the beer toward the "aloha" half of its name. Running that many varieties at once is a balancing act, since it's easy for a wide hop bill to blur into a single generalized hoppiness rather than a beer with a clear shape. South Lake's own description, splitting the profile cleanly into pine-and-herb on one side and tropical-and-citrus on the other, suggests they're managing that balance deliberately rather than just stacking hops for the sake of it.

Alpine Aloha IPA dropped Friday, August 14, and is available now in cans at South Lake Brewing's taprooms and online, timed alongside the brewery's Dog Days of Summer weekend at the South Lake Tahoe location.