Our good friend Virgil Dickerson from Suburban Home Recordsreturns with another pick for our weekly segment known so beautifully and simply as: Virgil’s Beer of the Week.
This week, I bring you the Highway 78 Scotch Ale, a collaboration between Green Flash, Pizza Port Carlsbad, and Stone, 3 breweries that I love very much. Stone’s collaborations always finds them pairing with really great breweries usually making a beer outside of the world they are most known for. One would think that a collab between these breweries would find them making a super hopped up IPA, but they decided to instead make a Scotch Ale. For those of you not familiar with this style, Scotch Ales are typically sweet, low on the hops, and much of their taste derives from the peat smoked malt that goes into the beer. Some of my favorite Scotch Ales are Great Divide’s Claymore Scotch Ale, Oskar Blues Old Chub, and a seasonal Scotch Ale that Wynkoop recently made.
While researching this beer style a bit, I found that there is a distinction between Scotch and Scottish Ales. Scotch Ales tend to be stronger in ABV, more full bodied, and richer in taste. I guess that is a good way to describe Highway 78. At 8.8 percent ABV, it is a bit stronger than most of the Scotch Ales out there. It is sweet, but not too sweet, it’s malty and when drinking, you can taste toffee and brown sugar. At $3.99 for a 12 ounce bottle, it’s a little outside of my price range when Claymore is closer to $10.99 a six pack. I do recommend giving it a try as it is a delicious beer, one that won’t be around much longer, so get one while you can.
Contest: Like I’ve done before, I offer up a contest whereby you guess what brewery’s pint glass is in the photo next to the Highway 78. Good Luck. Send your answers to postcardeditor@gmail.com. One lucky winner will be drawn at random from the correct guesses.
Last week, we picked 2 winners who both correctly answered Bear Republic. Jim Pavlik picked Look Mexico’s To Bed to Battle and Ty Auton picked Michael Dean Damron’s Plea From a Ghost. Thanks guys for reading and participating in our trivia.
Virgil Dickerson is the owner of Suburban Home Records. Support his beer passion by supporting his fabulous label by checking out one of these recent and upcoming SH releases.
Out Now:
I Can Lick Any Sonofabitch In the House “The Sounds of Dying” LP/CD, Two Cow Garage “Sweet Saint Me” LP/CD, The Gamits “Parts” LP/CD. Austin Lucas “Collection” LP/CD, Micah Schnabel “When The Stage Light Goes Dim” LP/CD
Coming Soon:
Michael Dean Damron “Plea From a Ghost” LP/CD, Josh Small’s Juke LP/CD, Under the Influence Volumes 1-10 dbl LP/CD, Drag the River “Hobos Demos/Chicken Demos” LP/CD, Ruiner/Attica Attica UTI 7″, Cheap Girls/Noise By Numbers UTI 7″, Dead to Me/Flatliners UTI 7″
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