When chatting with Jeremy from Big Spruce at the Ladies Beer League Cask Fest he mentioned the newest one off beer they had brewed, the Left Breton Organic Conspiracy Imperial IPA. It’s definitely a mouthful.
Realizing that Big Spruce does their Halifax deliveries on Tuesdays a plan was hatched to have a growler taken to the city with their kegs and delivered to Peter at work. Peter (the kind soul that he is) waited to meet up with Shean before cracking the seal.
The story behind this beer is that a bunch of organic hops were brought by Crannóg Ales during a visit to Big Spruce and were then used along with hops grown at the Big Spruce hop yard to make this Imperial India Pale Ale.
When we poured the beer we found the carbonation low but the growler had been held on to for a few days. Right away we were picking out candy and pine flavours. It had a malt sweetness to start with, along with the hop candy flavours but the bitterness stuck around so long it definitely won the battle. Peter was trying to nail down the candy flavour and offered hard strawberry candies as the flavour we struggled to explain. Shean wondered who he was working with, yet again.
We were so curious about the interesting hop flavours that we had found hard to explain that we fired off a message to Jeremy, who quickly got back to us with the following details:
Galena was used for bittering.
Cascade and Chinook were added at flame out (end of the boil).
Cascade and Willamette were used for the dry hop.
The alcohol by volume (ABV) was 7.4%.
It is an enjoyable and very intriguing brew.
Rumour has it that Stillwell Beer Bar now has it on tap, so it would be in your best interest to head on down and grab yourself a pint.
Cheers from Mashed In Hfx!
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