Bend’s Van Henion Brewing Company recently teamed up with Double Mountain Brewery of Hood River to brew Double Mountain’s latest seasonal beer, a West Coast-style IPA named Velvet Wallpaper.

Established in 2007, Double Mountain is a popular staple of downtown Hood River, best known for its hoppy ales, such as Vaporizer, a dry-hopped pale ale, Hop Lion IPA, India Red Ale, and Hop Lava IPA. The brewery also maintains taprooms in the Portland neighborhoods of Woodstock and Overlook.

Van Henion launched early in 2022, founded by brewers from Boneyard Beer Company, and is best known for both its German-style lagers and its India pale ales. The tasting room opened not long after, offering up what the company called “a cozy vintage vibe, with swag lamps, and wallpaper.”

Teaming up

I reached out to both breweries to find out more about how this collaboration came about. I heard back from owner and brewer Mark Henion at Van Henion, and lead brewer Matt Coughlin at Double Mountain.

“The owners of both companies, Matt Swihart and Mark Van Henion, have known each other through the business for quite a while,” said Coughlin via email.

Henion confirmed. “I’ve been friends with owner Math Swihart for about 30 years,” he said.

“When Van Henion opened, we were super impressed with their beers and have been following them ever since,” Coughlin said. “We respect their high quality. It was only a matter of time before we made a beer together.”

The experience itself was efficient, according to Coughlin.

“We had the collab on the books, had to push it a few times,” he said. “Once the ideas started to flow over email, the recipe came pretty quick.”

Velvet and hops

It’s the tasting room wallpaper that inspired the name of the beer. According to the press release, it “was inspired by a serendipitous moment when Matt Swihart, Double Mountain’s owner, walked into Van Henion’s brewery and discovered the same timeless, classy velvet wallpaper pattern found in the Hood River pub, albeit in a different color.”

Naturally, brewing an IPA is the obvious choice for the two hop-focused breweries. Five different hops were selected, Simcoe, Cascade, Centennial, Strata, and HBC 586, in a variety of formats including whole leaf, pellets, and cryogenically concentrated lupulin.

The hops were added at multiple stages, from late in the boil through dry hopping to maximize the infusion of hop character into the beer without excessive bitterness.

Double Mountain recently sent me a bottle of Velvet Wallpaper to sample. It’s 6.3% alcohol by volume with 50 IBUs.

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Hoppy place

It pours a bright golden color with a fluffy white head of foam and lace, and as it hits the glass you’ll notice aromas of evergreen reminiscent of pine forest. This is followed by a bouquet of grapefruit rind, dandelion pollen, a touch of tobacco, and mango-apricot juice. There’s a light note of multigrain nut bread in the malt.

The flavor starts with a pleasing forest floor bitterness and a spritz of grapefruit and essential oil. There’s a good malty base evoking toasted English muffin and Grape Nuts cereal, and the hops continue with a bit of fruit skin (mango and/or citrus), a touch of minty character, bitter orange, and green juice.

There’s a nice balance of flavors punctuated by a medium body that’s smooth, clean, and somewhat dry. It finishes with a lingering hop oil bitter character.

If you’re a fan of either brewery’s beers or IPAs in general, you’ll enjoy Velvet Wallpaper.

Van Henion currently has a limited amount on tap at its tasting room, but you can also find it in bottles and on tap at Double Mountain’s locations if you find yourself in Hood River or Portland.