SAN LEANDRO, CA — Drake’s Brewing Co. and Mikkeller have teamed up again for another collaboration, the Drakkeller Double IPA. In typical gypsy fashion, Mikkeller’s Brewery Relations manger Thomas Sch├©n swung through the SF Bay Area on February 12, 2014 during SF Beer Week and stopped by to brew a collaboration.
If you know Drake’s, you know we’re fully on board the West Coast hop wave (and we ride it well). And if you know Mikkeller, you know they’re all about pushing limits to make innovative and delicious new beers. Therfore, we knew the beer should be a representation of the West Coast with some Mikkeller-esque experimentation thrown in.
After some discussion between Mikkel Borg Bjergs├©, Thomas Sch├©n and our brewmaster John Gillooly, we ended up taking the best of both worlds and brew a double IPA dry-hopped exclusively with a “stupid amount of” new experimental hop from Washington’s Yakima Valley, Azacca. It’s a new hop that’s already exciting brewers all up & down the West Coast, with heavy notes of citrus & tangerine, along with pine and apple.
Drakkeller Double IPA is an 8% Double IPA that both Mikkeller and Drake’s can call “our kind of beer.”
The beer will be released, logically, at Mikkeller Bay in San Francisco on March 13, 2014 at 6pm. From there beer fans can expect to see this on draft at a few select beer joints across the Bay Area, as well Drake’s Barrel House in San Leandro until its all gone.
This is Drake’s and Mikkeller’s second collaboration, the first being the Invasion IPA brewed and bottled at Drake’s in November 2011.