Fort George Brewery Drops the Mic with 3-Way IPA

Fort George Brewery has announced a collaboration beer with Melvin Brewing and Barley Brown's to highlight their shared love of 90s hip-hop. In a playful press release, Fort George outlines the ingredients and the inspiration behind this collaborative IPA.

Here's the full release:

Throwin’ down the truth about 3-Way IPA 2016, straight from the OGs in charge – Chris Nemlowill at Fort George, Tyler Brown of Barley Brown’s Beer, and Jeremy Tofte from Melvin Brewing (with translations for the non-brewers).

THE COLLABORATION

Chris Nemlowill: “Straight up, mad props for your hops. If your kettles had kicks, they’d dunk on Motumbo.”

Jeremy Tofte: “Word. All your ickies are stickies and your drank is dank.”

Tyler Brown: “My Brewers! Bring it in.”

3-Way IPA is a collaboration based on mutual admiration. It’s a chance to share ideas and techniques with some of the world’s finest IPA brewers. Ultimately that knowledge is utilized in the brewing process and refined over the course of extensive beta batch testing. Four test batches were brewed this year, each with subtle changes to ingredients, amounts, and timing of additions.

THE MALT BILL

Tyler: “Shoot for 7.4?”

Chris: “7.3 ABV works for me.”

Jeremy: “7 point 35, right down the middle. Call it a sessionizzle.”

Tyler: “Fo shizzle.”

With the grain bill the goal was to produce an ultra-pale color, creating a simple yet solid canvas for maximum hop expression. 2-row barley is the base with additions of Pilsner, C15, and wheat (although Carapils was used in one test batch). A lower than average mash temp decreased the amount of residual sugar. This allowed the beer to have sweetness derived from the hop character rather than the malt. Astoria’s slow sand-filtered water is ideal for brewing. This was enhanced with gypsum and calcium chloride to decrease the mash PH and improve hop utilization.

THE HOPS

Jeremy: “Mo’ hops, mo’ money.”

Chris: “Long as my pint is phat, I don’t give a f*** where my IBUs at.”

Tyler: “I feel ya. Make the beer, don’t let the beer make you.”

Hop additions were as follows:

1st - Apollo hops for bittering - a high alpha hop that tends to exude grapefruit notes and contributes to an elaborate citrus character as it interacts with the aroma hops.

2nd - Simcoe, and a lot of it. This addition is 2x the quantity of the 1st addition.

3rd - Simcoe, Citra, and Mosaic, added later than the average 3rd addition to decrease bittering and magnify the pleasant citrus character.

Dry Hopping – Double dry-hopped with Galaxy, Mosaic, and Citra. These hop additions create peach, pineapple, and grapefruit taste and aroma. The second dry hop addition is roused with CO2 to boost the hop efficacy.

THE BEER

Jeremy: “We cool?”

Chris: “Keepin’ it real.”

Tyler: “One love.”

3-Way IPA is an unfiltered beer, pale in appearance, combining a balanced juicy body, superb lacing, and every citrus fruit aroma you can imagine. Give your beer its props - keep it cold-stored and drink fresh.

Look for Fort George 3-Way IPA in 16-ounce four-packs and draft starting the week of June 13th and throughout the summer. Fort George beer is distributed exclusively in the Pacific Northwest.