Drakes – Hopocalypse 2/1, Pre-Hopocalypse Experiment 1/7 & Upcoming Collaborations

The Hopocalypse arrives on February 1, 2014.  We brewed it, we’ll sell it, but beyond that, it’s up to you to follow us to safety, taking shelter from the hop assault that our double IPA Hopocalypse, our triple IPA Hopocalypse Black Label, and our post-Black Label small beer Post-Hopocalypse will visit upon the East Bay that fateful day.

Full details will be coming out sooner than later (keep an eye on our Twitter, Facebook, and blog), but we can tell you that we’ll be open at 10am, we’ll be selling bombers (1 case per person of Hopocalypse, 2 bombers per person Hopocalypse Black Label) & growler fills (2 per person of Hopocalypse DIPA), and we’ll have a small supply of Hopocalypse DIPA Brew-Rhino kegs available (1 per person). 

On tap, we’ll have Hopocalypse, Hopocalypse Black Label, and Post-Hopocalypse as well as specialty firkins of Hopocalypse with Grapefruit and Oaked Black Label, as well as a bunch of other great Drake’s beer (don’t worry malt-heads, we’ll take care of you, too).

Also that day, we will have food trucks, music, and a good chunk of our brewers on hand to help make the day all you ever dreamed it could be. 

Oh, one last thing about the release party… no, we will not have Pliny the Younger.

Pre-Hopocalypse Experimental Hopaggeddon

You may remember that we’ve been playing around with the latest & greatest hops that our providers up in Cascadia have been releasing out to brewers over the past few months, in the form of Experimental IPAs that we sent out all over California.

To get those lupulin receptors whipped into shape before the Hopocalypse release, we’re gonna have a mini-hopaggeddon of sorts this Tuesday at Drake’s Barrel House, when we re-release all four of our Experimental IPAs at once, for the first and last side-by-side tasting of these re-imagined west coast IPA one-offs.  We’ll still be asking for your feedback on them- with a fancy note sheet an’ everything- so remember- if anyone’s trying to judge you for ordering four beers on a Tuesday afternoon, you tell them that it is for science.

Here’s the Facebook event, if you’re so inclined.

Three Collaborations

We’re no doubt proud of the beer we make here, and of our talented brewhouse staff, but they’d be the first to tell you it’s always good to mix things up and hang out with other brewers in the industry.  That’s why collaboration brews are so popular in the craft beer industry, and we’re jumping on board with a few friendly brews to shake up this SFBW.  

First off, those of you in & around Long Beach area may remember our Mind Melder IPA, that our Brewmaster John Gillooly made in Long Beach with  Beachwood BBQ & Brewingbrewmaster Julian Shrago for LA Beer Week.  Welp, now it’s time to take that show from Queensway Bay to San Francisco Bay, as we’ll be hosting Julian here at Drake’s for a special SF Beer Week collaboration.  After the Mind Melder, we’re doing a 180 from a west coast IPA to an Imperial Porter with Ancho Chiles and Cacao nibs.  This collab will be available Valentine’s night at the Trappist in Oakland, with both Julian and John G in attendance.

Our next collaboration involves a face very familiar to us… Collin McDonnell recently left his "day job" here at Drake’s to devote himself full-time to the burgeoning HenHouse Brewing Co in Petaluma, which he co-founded.  No hard feelings, apparently, as before he even left, he invited our brewing staff up to Petaluma to brew a batch of Belgian Dark Strong at his joint.  That’s been sitting in bourbon barrels since we brewed it in mid-November.  This month, Collin and the rest of the HenHouse crew will be coming down to Drake’s to brew a fresh batch to blend in with the bourbon-barrel aged batch for SFBW.  You’ll get to try this brew on Feb 11th at a dual Beer Dinner at Hog’s Apothecary in Oakland & on Feb 13 at Sprenger’s Taproom in Santa Rosa. 

Our third collaboration again comes with some very familiar faces.  The Lunch Special trio will be a three-way summit of lupulin and those who love it, featuring three west coast double IPAs:

Faction Brewing’s Rodger Davis (former Drake’s and Triple Rock head brewer) will make Hop Soup, a beer created by Rodger when he brewed at Triple Rock.

Triple Rock’s Jeff Kimpe will be making Hop Salad.

Drake’s brewers will then finish the combo with Hop Sandwich on Rye- a double rye IPA.

All three of these brews will be brought together on Feb 11 at a soon-to-be announced location in Oakland, likely around lunchtime.

T

he craft beer world is small, and it’s getting more and more crowded every day, as new breweries like HenHouse and Faction hit the scene, but thankfully, it’s a pretty good group of folk we have here in the Bay Area, and the opportunity to work with each other is not something you’ll often find in other industries. That’s a great reason to raise a glass. Cheers. 
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