Through his years as a professional brewer, former Stone Brewmaster Mitch Steele has done everything from hone the mass production of light lagers to design and brew acclaimed West Coast IPAs. He even wrote the book on the subject of IPA—IPA: Brewing Techniques, Recipes and the Evolution of India Pale Ale. His six-pack is similarly focused on that push-pull between intensity and drinkability. (Note that we interviewed Steele for this column before he announced that he was leaving Stone to start a brewery of his own.)
Sierra Nevada Pale Ale (Sierra Nevada Brewing Company, Chico, California)
Sierra Nevada Pale Ale is the first craft beer I ever tasted. I was a student at UC Davis. We took a field trip up to Sierra Nevada Brewing Company, I tasted that beer, and it made me realize that I wanted to be a brewer professionally. It was a landmark moment for me. When that beer came out and when I tasted it—not to show too much about my age, but it was the early 1980s—there was nothing like that beer anywhere. The intensity of the hops character and the maltiness—the entire flavor combination was radically different from anything I had ever tried before.
My palate has changed over the past thirty years like everyone else’s, but Sierra Nevada Pale Ale is still what I consider a masterpiece beer—absolutely wonderfully balanced—and I would never hesitate to order one. That initial shock of hops character—so many brewers are doing that now that it has become more common—but the Cascade hops character is wonderful. The technical aspect of that beer and what Sierra Nevada has done technically continue to amaze me as a brewer.