CARLSBAD — The craft beer scene can often feel like a big family where brewers look out for one another.
Evidence of that familial camaraderie will be on full display at the 27th Strong Ale Festival, hosted at Pizza Port Carlsbad and set for Dec. 5 and 6. The event will feature more than 60 high-ABV beers spanning a range of styles. Tickets are available online.
Ian McCall, owner and brewmaster at ISM Brewing in Long Beach, will have two beers at the festival.
McCall said the Strong Ale Festival has been a “foundational” craft beer event on the West Coast for a “crazy” amount of time. He credited host Pizza Port for its generous role in fostering community and fraternity among craft brewers.
“Pizza Port led that charge starting many, many years ago,” McCall said.
He said one thing he loves about a festival full of high-ABV beers is seeing how other brewers “either hide or integrate alcohol into the flavor.”
Tom Finney, head brewmaster at Pizza Port Imperial Beach, said he enjoys picking the brains of other brewers and beer enthusiasts at events like this. For the festival, Finney collaborated with Farland Aleworks out of Tijuana, Mexico, to make the Jawa Double Juice.
“The guys at Farland use different mash temperatures than I do for a beer like this so that’s something that I got to try new which was really cool,” Finney said. “And it turned out great.”
He added that collaborations with other breweries allow him to “talk shop, share experiences and try new stuff that I haven’t tried and learn from other people.”
Finney described the Jawa Double Juice, a double IPA, as having notes of fresh citrus, strawberry, guava and pine, with a big body and upfront bitterness that is “not too harsh.”
“For a 9.3% [ABV] beer, it doesn’t drink boozy at all,” he said. “It drinks really smooth.”
Finney will also have two other beers at the festival: the Indie Roo, a stout that won gold at the Great American Beer Festival, and a bourbon barrel-aged version of the Indie Roo.
He said the year spent aging in barrels adds complexity, with hints of bourbon and oaky woodiness.
One of McCall’s offerings from ISM Brewing will be Sensory Overlord, an English-style barleywine with 10% ABV. The HBC 1019 hops give it a “bit of a West Coast flare,” McCall said.
He added that the prolonged boil intensifies caramelization, resulting in notes of toffee, golden-brown toast, dried cherries, and tawny port wine.
“It’s a very classic, straightforward, true-to-style type beer,” he said. “No heavy additives, no chocolate and fruit and everything else. Just a straightforward classic beer. It’s the kind of beer that Strong Ale Fest was built on.”
The other ISM offering, 2SM, is a double IPA celebrating the brewery’s second year. McCall said the 8.0% ABV beer features a “pretty intense” dry-hop blend of Mosaic Dynaboost, Mosaic T-90, Nelson, Nectaron, Cryo and Simcoe Cryo.
He called it a “big, bright, hop cocktail of a beer; super lean and crushable, but with an intense pop.”
McCall said when it comes to strong ales, “the options are really limitless” and can include “everything from an imperial pilsner that’s still light and bright and drinkable to a really heavy, thick, milky, chocolatey, viscous imperial stout.”
“At this festival, brewers from all over are going to show off all these different iterations of strong ale,” he said.
