Name: Cellarmaker 20th Anniversary Collab WCIPA
Brand: Kern River Brewing Co
Availability: InStock

Cascade is the hop that gave American beer its accent. Kern River Brewing Company's newest West Coast IPA uses a version of it that was left on the bine about a month longer than anyone normally allows.

The beer is the fifth release in the brewery's 20th anniversary collaboration series, brewed with Cellarmaker Brewing Company. Kern River canned it on September 7 and announced it the following day at 7 percent, in 16 ounce cans along with sixtel and half barrel kegs.

The hop bill is Nectaron, Citra, Deep Cut Cascade and Peacharine. Two of those need no introduction. The other two are worth stopping on.

Deep Cut is a Crosby Hops selection of estate grown Cascade left to hang into the end of September rather than picked on the usual schedule. The extra time on the bine pushes total oil content to roughly twice what a standard Cascade carries. The result still reads as Cascade, with the familiar grapefruit and pine underneath, but with mandarin and peach moved up front.

Peacharine comes out of Freestyle's breeding program in New Zealand and does more or less what the name advertises. Its calling card is ripe yellow peach and nectarine with a citrus edge. Nectaron, also from New Zealand, works the tropical end of the same territory.

Line those up and something becomes clear. Three of the four hops are aiming at stone fruit, which is not the direction a West Coast IPA usually travels. The style is built on bitterness and a dry finish, with citrus and pine doing the aromatic work. Kern River has kept the frame and swapped most of the picture. At 7 percent with that much peach in the glass, this would hold up well next to something salty and fried, where the bitterness has a job to do.

Kern River credits Cellarmaker's IPAs for a hop forward approach and bold personality, and describes the collaboration in its release notes as art in beer. The brewery is direct about the intent. If you want the same old thing, it says, this isn't it.

Only one batch was made. It is available now from the brewery's online shop, which is also still listing the fourth beer in the series, a double IPA made with Morgan Territory and packaged in early August.

Editor’s Take

Somewhere in the last decade the craft beer name turned into a small work of speculative fiction, and here is Kern River declining to play. This beer does not have one. The can reads Celebrating 20 Years With Our Friends From Cellarmaker, then West Coast IPA underneath, and that is the whole of it. The shop lists it as Cellarmaker 20th Anniversary Collab WCIPA, which is less a name than a description wearing a lanyard. Twenty years in, apparently, you stop needing to invent a word and start simply telling people what happened.

The part I keep circling back to is the Cascade. Cascade is the hop that taught America what American beer smells like, and it has spent the last fifteen years being politely edged aside for whatever landed from New Zealand most recently. Deep Cut is Cascade left hanging into late September, ripening past the point anyone normally permits, and the payoff is roughly double the oil. It is the hop equivalent of handing the solo back to the guy who wrote the song. On an anniversary beer, there is something rather nice about the newest thing in the hop bill turning out to be the oldest hop in the room.

Source & Editorial

JollyPint independently prepares release articles using information published by breweries through newsletters, websites, and other official public communications. Brewery-supplied descriptions and tasting notes are reported as provided, while editorial context is added by JollyPint.

Cellarmaker 20th Anniversary Collab WCIPA Runs a Late-Picked Cascade

The fifth beer in Kern River's 20th anniversary collaboration series pairs the brewery with Cellarmaker and runs four hops, three of which point squarely at stone fruit. One is a Cascade left on the bine an extra month.

Source & Editorial