Deschutes Brewery’s new taste of summer

Published 12:00 am Friday, May 13, 2016

Since 2004, Deschutes Brewery has brewed Twilight Ale for summer, a copper-colored, light-bodied pale ale infused with juicy citrus hop aromas that had long been a local favorite.

It had a longevity that nearly made it a staple in the brewery’s lineup, exceeded only by their winter ale, Jubelale. So it came as a surprise to many this year that Deschutes decided to discontinue the beer.

“Twilight is one of the few beers that both my husband and I enjoy drinking,” said Jen Floyd, a craft beer enthusiast and an early member of the Central Oregon Beer Angels organization. “The release date is usually around our wedding anniversary, and we look forward to clinking bottles each year to celebrate another year.” Floyd and her husband Scott enjoyed the beer so much that they brew a clone beer at home they call “Twilike.”

“Twilight resonated with people as their summer beer for a long time. It had a good 12-year run as our summer seasonal and it had a strong fan base,” said Jason Randles, Deschutes Brewery’s digital marketing manager. “But in order to highlight the creativity of our brewers and be able to introduce something new, we had to make the tough decision to pull Twilight from the seasonal line up.”

Enter the brewery’s new summer seasonal, Hop Slice Session IPA. Deschutes officials characterize it as “crisp lemon refreshment” for the summer: “Hop Slice is brewed with Meyer lemon, characterized by a more delicate aroma than the standard lemon, complemented by Azacca, Galaxy and Amarillo hops.” It’s a beer that taps into two growing trends in the craft beer world, Session IPAs (India pale ales) and fruit-infused IPAs.

The concept behind the Session IPA combines the hoppiness of an IPA with the lower alcohol of a session beer. Session beers are generally defined as flavorful, balanced beers with an alcohol content of less than 5 percent by volume (some go further and put the upper limit at 4 percent). By contrast, India pale ales are stronger, robustly-hopped beers tipping the scales to the hoppy and/or bitter side of the equation. The marriage of the two styles attempts to merge the best qualities of each in a hoppy yet balanced ale. You may have also seen this style referred to as an “ISA” or India session ale.

In recent years brewers have also experimented by adding fruit to their IPAs, which can be seen as the latest step in an ongoing effort to wrest more fruity and floral flavors from their hops than simply bitterness. Citrus fruits are a popular addition, complementing the citrusy, tropical fruit character of many newer hop varieties. Some examples include Ballast Point Brewing’s Grapefruit Sculpin, Lompoc Brewing’s Pamplemousse and Coalition Brewing’s Space Fruit IPA (the latter two examples hailing from Portland). More locally, The Growler Guys recently collaborated with Boise’s Sockeye Brewing to create a pineapple-infused version of Sockeye’s Dagger Falls IPA.

Infusing these trends and formulating Hop Slice, Deschutes Brewery researched and developed the recipe for three years, brewing experimental test batches at both their Bend and Portland pubs. Brewmaster Veronica Vega estimates they brewed eight to 10 batches before settling on the current recipe. The final beer uses Meyer lemon extract as well as hops that exhibit lemony characteristics, yet it’s only 4.5 percent alcohol by volume, one of the lightest in the brewery’s lineup.

Tasting the beer, I found there to be light aromas of lemon rind with pops of zest and lemon grass. Sticky hops, with juicy hints of tropical citrus fruits and lemon blossoms, bring up the rear. The taste is more bitter than I would have expected, with the bitterness of lemon pith along with spicy-green notes of hop resin. It lingers in the aftertaste, herbal and slightly oily like citrus peel. The malts are light and delicate, grainy and hinting at bread crust and slightly sweet caramel. It is definitely a hop-forward beer. But to my taste, lacking in the lemon character I was expecting from the description.

Hop Slice has only been on the shelves for a few weeks so it might be too soon to judge how successful the beer will be, though “so far the reception and sales have exceeded our expectations,” Randles said.

For anyone with Twilight beer longings, the brewery will be making a special batch for the annual Twilight 5K Run/Walk in August. “So, for all the Twilight fans out there, be sure to sign up for the 5K so you can enjoy a pint or two at least one time this summer,” Randles said.

Disclosure: Abernathy works for Smart Solutions, a web development and marketing company that hosts the Deschutes Brewery website, as well as several other brewery and beer company websites in Bend, including Crux Fermentation Project, Silver Moon Brewing, Bend Brewing Company and The Growler Guys. Aside from occasional website development work, Abernathy has no affiliation with any breweries listed above or otherwise.

— Jon Abernathy, author of “Bend Beer: A History of Brewing in Central Oregon” and thebrewsite.com blogger, is GO! Magazine’s beer columnist. He can be reached at jon@thebrewsite.com.