Top 100 Beers of 2015 (Issue 22)

World Class (100 to 96)

2.
96
by Phil Farrell
Tropicália
Creature Comforts Brewing Co.

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Judge's Second Opinion
from Phil Farrell

I will never forget my first beer partly because I don’t remember it. Evidently my Dad and my Uncle Bill (his brother), future pub owners, thought the little guy needed to taste what he was so intensely curious about. As the story goes, I was given a sip, immediately turned red and spit out the Ballantine IPA, thus ensuring a lifelong grail-like quest to re-experience my first taste of a class of beverages I later embraced in adulthood. My mother, who never met a story she wouldn’t repeat, has exponentially added new details to the story every year – even though she wasn’t there. I was only 2 in one telling and as old as 4 in another, but that is what you get when it is the story of something someone doesn’t remember as recounted by someone who wasn’t there. As far as family oral history goes, three times the sum total of my living relatives at the time were all in the room when it happened. Today I simply triangulate my age to have been 3, which thankfully agrees with almost 66 percent of those relatives polled.

Beer for me has always been a tapestry of the familiar stitched together by the thread of the unique. As the years go by it is really difficult to experience uniqueness as an isolated thing. I remember my first Cascade hop rush from a Sierra Nevada Pale Ale, my first Boston Lager, the oxidized sherry notes in my first Thomas Hardy, my first proper pint of cask ale, my first Weizen, my first Trappist Ale as well as my first truly intentionally wild beer. Every time I personally experienced something unique (for me), I filed it away even if I wasn’t initially taken by it. Much like the musician who gets drawn into others’ compositions the moment the first notes are strung together, I am most often treated to familiarity because let’s face it: I drink around. I enthusiastically seek unique yet don’t consider familiarity a failure.  Familiarity presented in a unique manner is always welcome. Amadeus Mozart essentially worked with the same 7 notes Dee Dee Ramone did, even though Dee Dee could only find 4 of them on a good day. Both created unique from the familiar.

My Familiarity Factor is particularly relevant for IPAs, Ballantine notwithstanding. You are setting yourself up for disappointment by limiting yourself to unique IPAs, considering they are the lifeblood of craft beer. Creature Comforts Tropicália is one of those beers that is so good precisely because it is unapologetically a master of familiarity. Hops can be thought of in the same manner as spices – with some chefs working with a few favorites and others throwing in the entire rack. In this case whether they utilized one or a blend of several, the brewers at Creature Comforts emphasized the pleasant aspects of tropical hop characteristics. The aroma is an array of tropical mainstays such as mango, orange, grapefruit, and even a little Georgia Peach. There is a bit of pine resin and a generic spiciness that hits the mark perfectly. If it were a song it would be a 45-RPM single playing in the key of Hop Sharp. The malt drum set keeps the beat going with a simple one-two of toast and caramel. The palate is then cleansed by a firm bitterness that is dry and not so thin as to disappoint yet not so full as to end your evening.  So delicious and drinkable, it is a Lennon-McCartney tune you can’t get out of your head rather than the overproduced Phil Spector “wall of sound” version that diminishes the original genius by too many additions. Tropicália is that tight 3-minute song that is so good you play it 3 times in a row.

Brewer's Thoughts
from Adam Beauchamp

Georgia’s craft beer scene is experiencing something of a resurgence. Despite extremely antiquated beer laws that hinder the growth and sales of many breweries, Georgia has a host of thriving and popular breweries that excel in making terrific brews.

One of the state’s hottest new breweries is Creature Comforts Brewing Company in Athens, GA, the home of the University of Georgia. Though they only currently have two year-round offerings, they make them count. The first is Athena, a flawlessly executed Berliner Weisse, and the second is their flagship IPA Tropicália.

Featuring a juicy cocktail of mango, guava and grapefruit flavors from Citra, Centennial and Galaxy hops, Tropicália is one of the hottest IPAs on the market right now, and I spoke with Creature Comforts brewmaster and co-founder Adam Beauchamp about this delectable drink.

“Tropicália features a ton of hop flavor and aroma, without the intense bitter aftertaste that many highly hopped IPA's exhibit. We avoid adding large amounts of colored malts to this brew in an effort to allow the bright hoppy flavors to shine,” said Adam. “At Creature Comforts we have a major focus on quality and freshness, and Tropicália greatly benefits from this by typically being offered to customers within a few days of canning.”

With any hugely popular craft beer that’s created by a microbrewery, supply and demand is important. Adam discussed how the brewery is trying to keep up with the voracious appetite for Tropicália that craft beer lovers have.

According to Adam, “We're able to keep the Athens, GA area fairly well supplied, but Atlanta has been a challenge since the beginning. We're brewing as much beer as we can at the brewery and are planning expansions that will come online very soon. We are staying totally focused on quality during this growth period, and we will never sacrifice the integrity of our products for the sake of growth.” 

“People should know that we sold about 1,800 barrels during our first year and we plan to hit close to 9,000 barrels this year,” Adam continued. “This upcoming year, with our new tanks, we should be able to do quite a bit more. We are growing extremely quickly, but from the customer's perspective, there are often only empty shelves where Tropicália should be. We are diligently working to fix that.”

Hopefully Creature Comforts expands quickly and easily, and Tropicália gets the widespread recognition it deserves as one of our best beers of 2015.