GUEST BLOG—By WestCoastersd.com—The following post first appeared on
West Coaster magazine’s website.
From
the Beer Writer:
It’s been an honor and a privilege to work with local breweries to develop
charity beers as part of the Beer to the Rescue campaign supporting the Lupus
Foundation of Southern California. One of the first brewers to get involved was
Alex Van Horne from Intergalactic Brewing Company. A cousin of his suffers from
lupus, so he was excited to have the chance to make a difference.
Like many
participating brewers, his first idea was to craft something hoppy in order to
do some wordplay with lupus and lupulin, the resinous substance in hops that
gives them their bitterness and aromatic character. In the end, we went a
completely different direction. My favorite Intergalactic beer has always been
Astro, a Scottish ale that’s all about malt. Van Horne was toying with the idea
of creating a version that would be higher in alcohol and more complex on the
palate, which sounded pretty incredible to me.
That beer is
now on tap at Intergalactic’s tasting room (9835 Carroll Centre Road, #108,
Miramar), with a portion of proceeds from its sale flowing directly to the
LFSC.
From the Brewer: “Astral Scottish Export Ale is a
heavier and maltier take on our award-winning Scottish amber ale, Astro. We use
six different malts and East Kent Golding hops to create a complex malt profile
with enough English hop character to balance its sweetness.
We then add
molasses and vanilla during fermentation to provide sugar complexity, depth and
a dessert-like quality to this 7.8% alcohol-by-volume ale. The result is a
smooth-drinking, malt-forward and unique interpretation on a classic
Scottish-style ale that’s full of toffee, biscuit, caramel, molasses and vanilla
flavors with some nutty, smoky notes.”
—By
Alex Van Horne, Owner & Brewmaster, Intergalactic Brewing Company
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