Beer of the Week: Shasta

Having worked for breweries, I’ve been privy to conversations wherein brewers talk about recipe-formulation for new beers. As one would expect, they do so with great purpose. Everybody wants to make the best beer possible. That said, the brewers I’ve interloped on seemed to apply the most concentration to IPA recipes. In a town fueled by golden-hued, hop-infused goodness, it takes a lot for an individual brewery’s IPA to stand out, so it makes sense that fermentationists would spend a great deal of time and energy putting together a hop bill for one. Contrary to popular belief, it’s not as simple as throwing in money varietals like Nelson, Mosaic, Strata, Citra and Krush. (Say, whatever happened to Galaxy?) Sure, those are the hops most craft-beer drinkers want, and it’s tempting to fixate on them, but so much can be achieved by fighting that urge and even, dare I say, winging it a bit. Case in point, this week’s featured beer, Shasta. Named for the California mountain of the same moniker, this West Coast IPA is the first from San Marcos’ Michi Brew Co. to make it into a can. It wasn’t the beer owner and Head Brewer Cody Gagnon expected to be his first packaged creation, but his regulars loved it so much that it was a no-brainer. This, despite the fact that, of all the IPAs he’s created in Michi’s first six months in business, Shasta features the most unorthodox hop bill; a mélange of varietals hailing from Germany, New Zealand and the Pacific Northwest. Shasta smells of citrus and pine, following up on the taste buds with flavors of pineapple and orange with a lingering hint of white-wine. It’s a sensory cornucopia (happy Thanksgiving) resulting from a little of this and a little of that, and everything pops against a barely-there malt bill reminiscent of an extra pale ale. As you’ll see below, this beer was really more a product of necessity than anything else. Regardless, Shasta goes to show that experimenting with and beyond cheater hops can pay off. Just ask Michi’s regulars!

Shasta is a double dry-hopped West Coast IPA. It was the fifth out of six such IPAs that we brewed. I had a ton of leftover hops in our cold-box that needed to be used, so I put together a recipe that I would probably never set out to brew, but I really didn’t want to buy any more hops. Go figure. It was easily the most popular West Coast IPA we’ve done. It has a super soft water profile to keep everything very round and smooth and an absolutely insane amount of flavor. Naturally, it was the first IPA we canned, and I’m really stoked with how the artwork turned out. Shasta will hopefully be one of our core beers moving forward.”

Cody Gagnon, Owner & Head Brewer, Michi Brew Co.

Michi Brew Co. is located at 1801 Diamond Drive, #101 in San Marcos