Beer of the week, December 31, 2020

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. Burning Beard Where Vultures Fare | German-style Pilsner (5.2%)
   
   Jeff Widerkehr at El Cajon’s Burning Beard Brewing is one of our local champions of lagers, to great effect. Better still, the titles of his beers always have a (sometimes occluded) cultural reference. This one manages the neat trick of multiple layers. The 1968 British film Where Eagles Dare was at once a World War II-set action movie and a spy thriller combined into one, with its centerpiece an impregnable Nazi castle which the Allied protagonists must infiltrate. The American satirical institution MAD Magazine duly printed a spoof, from which this pilsner takes its name. The beer itself showcases the regal Hallertau Mittlfrüh hop varietal, with floral aromas and a firm bitter finish.

2. Moksa How Are You Doing? | Hazy IPA (7%)
   
   This beer’s title doubles as a question we all perhaps ought to be asking one another more frequently, given the unprecedented year now coming to an end. With a signature pillowy texture, expressively estery yeast and a dry-hop regiment of Citra and Nelson, this hazy IPA from NorCal’s Moksa Brewing is not a total panacea for isolation…so give your friends or family a call while drinking one!

3. Karl Strauss Peanut Butter Cup Porter | Porter (5.4%)
   
   A perennial San Diego favorite from venerable Karl Strauss Brewing, which sadly skipped a year altogether in 2019. Devotees will be delighted by its limited return for the holiday season and New Year. With a roasted-peanut aroma that never veers into powdery or dusty territory, wrapped around a chocolaty malt base, this beer nailed the sensory intersection of childhood nostalgia and brewing long before the current pastry-stout craze.