Sierra Nevada’s newest year-round release—Torpedo Extra IPA, an India pale ale embellished by the brewery’s homemade hop-extractor, dubbed “the hop torpedo”—may be viewed as a thank-you to the craft beer drinking community. After all, the brewery helped launch our collective love of hops when it introduced its flagship pale ale in 1980.
There once was a time in America, not that long ago, when we had brewers, winemakers and distillers. It was a simple, orderly era. Each group existed among its own kind, occasionally venturing to sample the wares of another group, but never straying.
In his charming book, Great American Eccentrics, Carl Sifakis defines his subject matter thusly: “The true eccentric follows his own rules of conduct 24 hours a day—because he knows his code is the right one and everyone else is wrong; because he does not want to compete by conventional standards; or because eccentricity seems the... View Article
