Two of my favorite words are “free” and “beer”. When you put those two sweet words together, you can almost guarantee I am going to show up. So that is how I found myself at the Produce Station this past Friday, sampling two free beers!
North Peak’s Hoodoo Wet Hop IPA was the first beer that I sampled. Wet hopping is a brewing technique in which the brewer uses freshly picked hops. It generally gives the beer a powerful punch of hops from the initial taste all the way through the finish. Made with fresh Michigan hops, Hoodoo delivers a dominant citrusy taste—mostly hops, very little malt.
The second beer was Lagunitas Brown Shugga. This beer was born when the brewers were attempting to rescue a batch of beer. To try to save their brew, they added copious amounts of brown sugar to the mash. While they didn’t get the original result they were looking for, they got something even more special! You definitely get the flavor of the brown sugar, but the beer is not cloying. The malt is sweet and you also get a lovely taste of seasonal spices.
The nice folks at the Produce Station told me that there will be beer tastings every Friday, with the possibility of Anchor Steam Christmas Ale in the coming weeks! And come on…free beer, friends! Really, are there two sweeter words in our vocabulary?
Check it out: Fridays, 5-6:30 at the Produce Station located on 1629 South State Street in Ann Arbor.
