21st Amendment Brewing — Liberating Beer

A wheat ale brewed with watermelon juice. A dark IPA. A double IPA served with carrot cake. There seems to be a million things that could go wrong with those mixtures, but 21st Amendment Brewing Company, based in San Francisco, pulls each one off — and they kick ass at doing it. On Wednesday, Doc Watson's held a beer tasting for the 11-year-old micro brewery and I, along with the rest of my table, was blown away by the carefully crafted flavors that were as smooth as they were unique. Here's a breakdown of the five that we tasted:

Come Hell or High Watermelon
Wheat Ale - 5.1%
When looking over the list, I thought this would be the one that didn't appeal to my taste. As what seems to happens often, I was wrong. Of all the fruit-infused beer I've had, this is one of the most smooth — probably because it is brewed with 100 percent watermelon juice. A perfect beer for a hot summer afternoon.

Brew Free! or Die
IPA - 7.0%
One of the members of our table has never met an Indian Pale Ale she liked — except this one, which our local 21st Amendment rep Bob told us is not all that uncommon for this extremely light and balanced IPA. If your in mood for a hoppy beer, but not one that blitzkriegs your throat, here's your savior.

Back in Black
IPA - 6.8%
A dark pale ale — how the hell does that make sense? Well, I don't really care because the hops perfectly surround Back in Black's roasted, malty heaviness. A few mirco-breweries have been playing around with this style recently, and it has been categorized as Cascadian Dark Ale. This was my favorite, and is one of the innovative brews I think every craft beer fan should try.

Monk's Blood
Dark Belgian Ale - 8.3%
The two owners of 21st traveled to Belgium to develop this recipe — a dark ale brewed with Belgian candi sugar, cinnamon, vanilla bean and black mission figs, aged on oak. I wasn't crazy about it, but it was the favorite of the other two people at my table. So it goes.

Hop Crisis?
Double IPA - 9.7%
If you don't like hoppy beer, don't try Hop Crisis. If you're not a hop coward, be prepared for your taste buds to take a long, hard trip down fizzle avenue. Paired, what seemed to be oddly, but as we found out, appropriately, with carrot cake, Hop Crisis provides the kick an IPA lover will appreciate. (Below is a video of 21st Amendment's local rep, Bob, explaining the beer in much more detail than I am capable of.)