Beer of the Week, April 4, 2021

Our Bottlecraft North Park manager, Gene, selects his favorite beer of the week. You can stay up to date on our beer shop favorites through our news feed and also through our Instagram.

1. Kern River Citra | Double IPA (8%)
   
   An iconic, cult-favorite beer. Once upon a time, enthusiasts had no choice but to make the arduous drive up the twisty mountain roads northeast of Bakersfield to reach Kern River Brewing to pick up this annual release. To see the beer in cans on the shelf at the shop (16-ounce cans, no less!) is really astonishing. Though its namesake hop varietal, Citra, is predominant, this is no single-hop IPA. There is also bright, orangey Amarillo hiding in its midst. The real danger with this beer is its drinkability. Despite an 8% ABV (alcohol-by-volume) that gives this beer firm DIPA status, the texture and finish imply a beer far lower in alcohol.
   
   
2. Tired Hands Trendler Pilsner | German-style Pilsner (5%) 
   
   Tired Hands Brewing can be filed under “breweries we never thought would ever distribute to California, and yet here they are!” The Philadelphia-area project has attracted visitors far and wide for the better part of a decade now with their lagers, (increasingly hazy) IPAs and mixed-fermentation sour beers. Trendler is squarely a pilsner in the German tradition, with herbal wildflower Spalter Select in the hopping.
   
   
3. Modern Times Strawberry Limeade Fruitlands | Fruited Gose (4.8%)
   
   Those with long memories will recall that the core Fruitlands from Modern Times Beer was not always a passionfruit-guava combo in 16-ounce cans, but rather a rotating single-fruit Gose in 22-ounce bombers! I distinctly recall first tasting the debut of its not-dominant iteration at the very first Festival of Funk at Golden Hall some years back. Since then, only occasional forays of differing fruit combinations have made their way into distribution. This latest iteration (in eye-catching radioactive green 19.2-ounce “giraffe” cans with fuchsia text) melds strawberry, lime and hibiscus into the tart and lightly salted base beer. Outside of Modern Times itself, this release is only available at Bottlecraft for the time being!