Four Peaks Releases the Seasonal Favorite for 17th Year in a Row
TEMPE, Ariz – While the temperature may not reflect it, fall has officially come to Arizona thanks to Four Peaks Brewing Company releasing their highly anticipated seasonal beer, Four Peaks Pumpkin Porter on September 9, 2015. Four Peaks has maintained the same recipe for the past 16 years and continued the tradition this season too.
Pumpkin Porter will be available for Arizona statewide distribution through Hensley Beverage Company in Arizona beginning the week of September 14, 2015, including draft and cans. Each year Four Peaks produces more than the previous year and each year it’s more popular than the last.
“Pumpkin Porter is a dark, rich porter combined with all of the things that make a great pumpkin pie; nutmeg, allspice, ground clove and a little bit of ginger. It’s our most popular specialty beer and has been for nearly two decades,” explains Andy Ingram, Four Peaks Brewer, and founding partner. Pumpkin Porter weighs in at 5.1% ABV and 9 IBUs.
Following on Pumpkin Porter’s coattails will be Imperial Porter later in the season (release date TBD). Imperial Porter is a part of Four Peaks’ Single Tank Series and is brewed one 40 BBL batch at a time, in-house. This double pumpkin imperial porter is not quite double in alcohol and not quite double the pumpkin. This porter weighs in at about 8.2% ABV and 25 IBUs.
Four Peaks Brewing Company has been a part of Tempe, Arizona since 1996. It is the third largest brewery in the United States among those only distributing in their home states.
Tasting beer requires more than simply drinking beer.
There is a ritual to tasting beer that involves each of your senses. Bringing this practice to light may tack on a few extra minutes to your sampling session but what you learn by participating in a friendly (and somewhat organized) tasting session could last a lifetime!
PRO TIP: “What I tell people is to use all of your senses when tasting beer. You eat with your eyes why not drink with them too.” – Melissa Osborne, Brewer
The Structured Analysis Process
Melissa leads a tasting session with craft beer team leaders for Total Wine.
Melissa Osborne is a member of the Four Peaks Brewing team and an experienced judge. Melissa leads monthly tasting and sensory panels for the staff and specialty tasting sessions for partners. She knows a thing or two about sampling and judging beers.
During organized and formal tasting sessions, the group is given samples of each of the Four Peaks mainstay beers – Hop Knot IPA, Raj IPA, 8th Street Pale Ale, White Ale, Arizona Peach Ale, Sunbru Kolsch, Kilt Lifter Scotch Ale and Oatmeal Stout. Each participant is given a sheet of paper that outlines each style. There is a quick overview of what the style is and the ingredients of that specific brew to give participants some background and education about the style at hand.
For each style, some sections can be checked that offer several descriptors. Using all senses – appearance, aroma, taste, and mouth-feel, participants take their time to identify precisely what they see (color, clarity, head), what they smell, (dark fruit, light fruit, citrus, spices, bread), what they taste (flavors, intensity, transitions, finish) and mouth-feel (carbonation, body, smooth, silky).
Sampling notes
Participants are urged to take notes on their findings and encouraged to consider food pairings for each style. After taking notes on each style, participants share their findings with each other and compare notes. This is a crucial step! Many times different folks have different sensory thresholds. This means they can pick up on a particular attribute much easier than someone else in the group. Once discussed, other participants may be able to pull through a similar attribute and VOILÀ! Palates have been expanded. Similar characteristics can be detected in future tastings of that same style (or other related styles).
PRO TIP: “At a judge table, we taste and make our notes independantly then talk about it afterward so we don’t influence each other.” -Melissa Osborne
Why so serious? Tasting beer is supposed to be fun!
Tasting and learning about your beer should be fun! Let’s break down the process into four easy steps that will take your beer sampling (and palate!) to the next level:
Hold your sample up to the light (Hint: put a piece of white paper or a white napkin behind it.)
What do you see? Take note of the color (honey, russet brown, inky black), the clarity (brilliant, hazy, cloudy, bright), and the head (persistent, rocky, frothy)
Bring the beer up to your nose and inhale. (Hint: open your mouth slightly and inhale with your nose and mouth.)
What do you smell? Is it bready or biscuity? Can you smell raisins or bananas? Maybe a hint of grapefruit? Possibility pepper, licorice? Reach deep into the old memory bank for scents of your youth – grass, a cellar, a fresh lilac, Sunday breakfast (bacon!).
Now, take that first sip.
What do you taste? What is it? Is that vanilla? A hint of dark chocolate? Maybe caramel? Is it all bread? What’s the intensity of the flavors? Subtle or over the top? Maybe one taste transitions into another? How’s that finish? Dry or lingering?
Once that sip of beer has passed, let’s think about how the mouth feels.
How did that beer feel in your mouth? Was the beer smooth and silky? Or was it hot and astringent? Did it bounce over your tongue or did it glide over it? Was it dense and chewy or delicate and light?
Staff sensory tasting at Four Peaks Tasting Room in Tempe.
For these exercises, you don’t have to be taking in-depth notes. Using a free app, like Untappd, can help you organize and document the beers you have tried. This is an exercise about expanding your palate and understanding what you are drinking. It gets you talking about beer and increases your appreciation for the craft. You can tell your friends why you liked (or disliked) a particular brew.
Don’t worry, you won’t be tested. There aren’t any right or wrong answers to tasting beer. While it can be intimidating at first, I encourage you to get out there and taste with friends. Hosting a bottle exchange party or getting together with a group to enjoy a round of taster flights is the perfect opportunity to put this ritual to good use!
PRO TIP: “Go with your gut instinct when tasting a beer. Trust your palate.” – Melissa Osborne
Do you have a tasting ritual you’d like to share? Let us know in the comments below or share with us on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram!
To the outside world, Real Wild & Woody looks like another excuse to get together and drink… a lot. But to the craft beer community, it is more than that. It’s an opportunity to come together with craft beer friends, talk about craft beer and drink some varieties of craft beer that we may not get our hands on otherwise.
This year, Real Wild and Woody enveloped a larger venue over its inaugural year and planted itself firmly at the Phoenix Convention Center. A welcomed change to many return fans. Sufficed to say it was real-er, wilder and woodier than last year and from the looks of it, nothing is going to stop this train from picking up speed in upcoming years. It will get bigger. It will get better. It will attract more fans.
Beer festivals bring beer fans together to laugh, rub elbows with brewers and taste many different kinds and varieties of beers we wouldn’t normally order in a pub or craft beer bar. We get to expand our palates and our network of friends and hopefully reach some new fans. We are fortunate to be amongst fellow crafters and fellow craft beer fans.
Fifty-five breweries were represented to over 2,000 attendees, and the overwhelming feeling of comradery amongst them was rivaled only by the climbing ABV imbibed from booth to booth. There was some talk about whose line was longest and which beer tasted the best, however, this festival seemed to be far more spreading the word about craft beer than pining for a popularity award. Four Peaks put its best foot forward by offering 2012 Hopsquatch Barley Wine and Sirius Black Russian Imperial Stout both aged in Four Roses barrels, as well as the Belgian Red. In addition to a few samples of our tasty brews, I personally enjoyed newcomers Goldwater Brewing Company’s Desert Rose – Cactus Fruit Ale.
What the outside world doesn’t see is that craft beer festivals are not just about peddling a particular beer or a specific style. Craft beer festivals, like Real Wild and Woody, are about the love of beer and sharing that love and passion with other like-minded fans. It’s a community. It’s a feeling of belonging and understanding. We don’t take ourselves too seriously and enjoy letting our Freak Flag fly something fierce.
Each brewery representative attending
the event recognizes the next brewery’s
struggle. Watch carefully and craft beer fan gets to see them laughing, talking, hugging and enjoying each other’s latest brew with gusto. For one brief moment, one gets to peek into this world that embraces the new-comers, respects those who have been around the block and exchanges stories of the wins and losses of operating a craft beer brewery.
What does this mean for Arizona Craft Beer Fans? It means that with each beer festival held in Arizona, a little more ground is being broken for craft beer. The newest brewery makes a debut. A new style of beer is tasted for the first time. The newest of the new gets to take center stage while giving brewers and brewery representatives the opportunity to see what’s breaking into the market; to see what their colleagues are doing and wondering if it fits into their plans too.
So no, Real Wild & Woody isn’t just another excuse to just get together and drink a lot. It’s an opportunity of like-minded individuals to congregate and taste dynamic beers, reconnect with old friends and make some new friends. It is a privilege to talk about the beer we make and the beer that others make. We work feverishly to continue to build a community that is dedicated to a collective partnership in the pursuit of supporting an industry comprised of our friends, our family, our co-workers, our brand and Arizona Craft Beer Fans.
How do Arizonans handle the heat? For many, we take this opportunity to catch up on our movies. Phoenix FilmBar offers the perfect venue to beat the heat and watch some of our favorite Indy films (or films we may have missed on the big screen the first time) with a Four Peaks draft beer in hand.
Phoenix FilmBar is located in downtown Phoenix at 815 N 2nd St, Phoenix, Arizona.
Phoenix FilmBar offers your favorite Four Peaks styles – including Oatmeal Stout. And with its summer series, including The Karate Kid and Coming to America, Phoenix movie lovers get to relive old memories while introducing a new generation to these timeless films.
That’s not all the Phoenix FilmBar offers. With screenings like Durant’s Never Closes, the Phoenix FilmBar takes many opportunities to support local businesses and local artists – including Travis Mills.
Travis set out to raise $100,000 in a KickStarter Fund by February 5, 2015. He succeeded and now the fruit of, not only his fundraising efforts, but his creation, “Durant’s Never Closes” will soon be bestowed upon this great state.
“Durant’s Never Closes”, a movie based on the book “The Saga of Jack Durant,” by Mabel Leo and “In My Humble Opinion,” a play written by Terry Earp, captures the life of 1950’s Phoenix gambler and restaurant owner Jack Durant. Jack’s ties to the mafia remain a mystery, but his insatiable love for women is as intriguing as the guests he welcomed into his legendary steakhouse in the 1950’s. What is even more interesting to this craft beer crowd, Four Peaks Kilt Lifter makes a couple of scene-stealing cameos!
What has been your favorite movie you’ve taken in at Phoenix FilmBar?
What we have here is Four Peaks Oatmeal Stout and let me tell you – it’s a perfect pairing for summer. Do not – I repeat – DO NOT let this luxurious head on this beautiful beer fool you!
But, but, but – it’s too HOT outside to have such a thick, creamy beer!
Au contraire, mon frère (ou ma Soeur)!
The Oatmeal Stout is most certainly the perfect pair for summer. Often paired with desserts or considered a “breakfast beer”, this light-weight stout weighs in a 5.2% ABV. An alcohol by volume (ABV) percentage that is right in line with Four Peaks Sunbru. It has a beautiful dark, inky black hue and smells of roasty-toasty, malty goodness. It glides across your tongue with smooth, sensual, elegant grace and finishes clean yet leaves you wanting more.
This beer has all the complexity of a fine, sexy California Syrah and drinks as such. The Oatmeal Stout is perfectly sessionable and refreshing without weighing you down – complex but not overwhelming.
Dating back to the mid- to late 1800’s, this style evolved out of the necessity of nourishment as adding oats was thought to make the beer “healthier”. It was considered “table beer” and a remedy of sorts and was often prescribed to nursing mothers and ill children. This style of beer is often sweeter than its drier Stout counterpart but not because of the addition of oats, but due to the increased amount of malts used in addition to yeast strains that don’t consume too much of the sugar.
Absolutely pair Four Peaks Oatmeal Stout with tiramisu or enjoy in an Oatmeal Stout Milkshake but also pair it with a bean burrito, beet salad, garlic-roasted tenderloin, beef short ribs, a burger, an oyster on the half shell or even with brunch.
You heard it here, Arizona – when looking for a light viscosity beer, consider a beer a bit darker in hue but still packed with flavor and brewed right here in Arizona. Four Peaks Oatmeal Stout is available at Four Peaks Brewery in Tempe and Four Peaks Tap & Grill in Scottsdale but it is also available at several fine craft beer bar establishments like FilmBar Phoenix and Red White & Brew.
Which brewery brews your favorite Oatmeal Stout? What do you enjoy pairing with it?
TEMPE, Ariz – While the temperature may not reflect it, fall has officially come to Arizona thanks to Four Peaks Brewing Company releasing their highly anticipated seasonal beer, Four Peaks Pumpkin Porter on September 9, 2015. Four Peaks has maintained the same recipe for the past 16 years and continued the tradition this season too.
Pumpkin Porter will be available for Arizona statewide distribution through Hensley Beverage Company in Arizona beginning the week of September 14, 2015, including draft and cans. Each year Four Peaks produces more than the previous year and each year it’s more popular than the last.
“Pumpkin Porter is a dark, rich porter combined with all of the things that make a great pumpkin pie; nutmeg, allspice, ground clove and a little bit of ginger. It’s our most popular specialty beer and has been for nearly two decades,” explains Andy Ingram, Four Peaks Brewer, and founding partner. Pumpkin Porter weighs in at 5.1% ABV and 9 IBUs.
Marie at Four Peaks 