Beer of the Week: Packed Greens

From the Beer Writer: Summer is known for vacays, road trips and fun in the sun. And, as evidenced by San Diego Beer News’ calendar of beer-centric events (if you haven’t seen it, all you need to do is click here and we’ll send it to you as part of our Friday newsletter each week), it’s also the time of year when most new breweries make their debuts. That’s not a coincidence. Summer is the time of year when people consume the most beer, so entrepreneurs strive to have their doors open in time to capitalize off that and start raking in revenue to counter the heavy expenses they’ve incurred bringing their businesses to life. Because delays are a sad-but-true fact of life, most breweries targeting a start-of-summer premier don’t end up opening until later in the sunny season. As such, the latter half of summer is something of an “anniversary season” with multiple brewery birthdays happening each weekend. As beer fans know, breweries’ anniversaries birth some of the best events and beers of the year, but with as many as three occurring on the same day, one must pick and choose. While a beerophiles may miss out on the party aspect of a brewery, fortunately, specialty beers brewed for such occasions live on far beyond those fetes. Take, for instance, this week’s featured beer, Packed Greens from Helix Brewing. A West Coast IPA with a peachy nose, followed by flavors of pineapple, mango and pot with an orange-pith finish, it was a big hit at the La Mesa company’s seven-year anniversary event last weekend. Much of it has been consumed, but there’s plenty left to go around and the beer is still as fresh as the day is long. So check it out, perhaps on the way to or from this week’s anniversary events, which are taking place at Helia Brewing (four years), North Park Beer Co. (six years) and Aztec Brewery (11 years). (I’m telling you, you need to sign up for our newsletter!)

From the Brewer: “Packed Greens is a vibrantly hopped West Coast anniversary IPA with notes of tropical fruit and citrus. Over the recent months we have been exploring different areas of beer such as New Zealand hop varietals, cold IPAs and lagers, but had an urge to circle back to our roots for our seven-year anniversary beer, and brewed a rad West Coast IPA using some of the greatest American hop varietals. We built a base beer of two row, wheat and oats in order to have a very light-colored beer with enough body to carry the hop oils and showcase American hops. Citra, Simcoe and Mosaic hops were spun in the whirlpool and then added two more times along with Idaho 7 as a dry-hop in the fermenter. During the dry-hop, we cap our fermenters early to infuse all the hop aromas in the beer. A tropical-fruit and citrus explosion occurs when the pint is poured, leaving your nose and taste buds stoked. Packed Greens got it’s name in conjunction with our anniversary merch release. We release a new shirt along with our anniversary beer and found it most fitting to replicate an old VW Bug that frequents Helix a lot and pack a hop on top to symbolize our hoppy beers. We find inspiration from our friends, beer fans and team. Without them we wouldn’t be able to make beer and have fun sharing it with everyone.”—Cameron Ball, Owner & Head Brewer, Helix Brewing