Beer of the Week: Browner Than Ivan

From the Beer Writer: The Great American Beer Festival (GABF) is the largest annual brewing competition in the world. It’s produced some great American memories for numerous San Diego brewers, including the team at Chula Vista Brewery, who earned a bronze medal at last year’s contest for its American-style brown ale, Browner Than Ivan. This beer melds aspects of a smooth, nutty brown ale with a bittersweet, chocolaty stout, while adding a subtle yet delectable not of pine in the finish. It’s not surprising it brought home some hardware. Hearing their names called at the awards ceremony was surreal for owner Tim Parker and his crew, not only because it inspired an amphitheater full of brewing-industry professionals to erupt into laughter over the name of the beer, but because it was their first-ever GABF medal and they were able to go on stage to collect it with the beer’s namesake.

From the Brewer: “Browner Than Ivan is a 6% ABV (alcohol-by-volume) American brown ale, inspired by Jeff Bagby’s old Great American Brown from his days at Pizza Port Carlsbad. It has a healthy dose of Centennial and Cascade hops, and a solid, malty backbone. The name stems from hanging out with our neighbors at Thr3e Punk Ales Brewing, as we are all great friends with the former head brewer there, Ivan Maldonado. One day a joke came up that (Thr3e sPunk Ales co-founder) Steve Garcia made to Ivan that, with me being very tan at the time, I was literally ‘browner than Ivan.’”—James Hodges, Head Brewer, Chula Vista Brewery