Beer of the Week: Good of the Public

From the Beer Writer: The West Coast and Northeast regions of the country are popular for their distinct styles of IPA. And so is San Diego. The “San Diego IPA” is a riff on America’s most popular beer style presenting as little malt character as possible while providing just enough counterbalance to support huge hop presence. For the past eight years, few have done so well with this tough-to-brew style as the team at Societe Brewing. Their IPAs define this hyper-regional IPA class, but none has endeavored to take the San Diego-style IPA to the extremes of the Kearny Mesa brewery’s new limited-edition offering, Good of the Public. Crystal clear, clean and bone dry, there’s no hint of bread, toast or biscuit. The malt doesn’t take a backseat here. Societe’s stowed it in the trunk so they can pack their jalopy with as many Strata, Mosaic, Amarillo and Columbus hops as possible. And being so green and light on the palate, it’s perfect for San Diego’s suddenly surging summer and its pantheon of namesake IPAs.

From the Brewer: “For the first seven years of our existence, our focus was on draught beer and the occasional bottled feral release. This changed when we got our canning line up and running this January. With the advent of our canning line, we made the choice to release four-packs of limited IPAs throughout the year. Limited doesn’t equate to exclusive for us. Each of these IPAs is designed to be enjoyed more than once. Good of the Public is no exception. It’s assertively hop-forward with a balanced, refreshingly dry finish. We achieve this by using a combination of malts to provide a subtly cracker-like crisp backbone to carry the hops in the beer. This was done by combining our usual two-row and pilsner malt with two California-grown offerings from Admiral Maltings: Yolo Golden Wheat and Feldblume. While Mosaic, Amarillo and Columbus have all played roles in other Societe beers, combining the three and adding Strata was uncharted territory for a Societe IPA. After reflecting on what we learned from last year’s Bachelor single-hop IPA with Strata, we were excited to bring that hop into the mix. The resulting combination of Strata and Mosaic push forward lighter-colored stone fruit flavors like peach, nectarine and apricot. As much as those flavors and aromas greet you up front, the beer’s fruitier flavors are balanced out with some dank, piney notes that camp out on the back end of one’s palate. All in all, we feel Good of the Public is as ideal to pair with a day spent adventuring in the outdoors as it is adventuring on your couch after your most recent video meeting.”—Teddy Gowan, Director of Brewery Operations, Societe Brewing