Arcadia B Craft

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Tasting: September 20, 2012
Style: Black IPA (Double)

Arcadia B Craft (c) 2012 popsonhops

I say Battle Creek, Michigan and you think of what product? I assume within a nano-second, you’ve come up with cereal – especially if you’re like me and spent a healthy chunk of your life staring at the meaningless information on cereal boxes. Hmmm, what is ascorbic acid? If only I read and retained my text books with such clarity and accuracy. If you didn’t think cereal, let me enlighten you. Battle Creek is known as “Cereal City” and is home to the world headquarters of the inventors of cold cereal — the Kellogg Company. They are the largest employer in the city and as such I assume a city that may very well live and die with our nation’s breakfast consumption. Now, I know that Battle Creek has many other businesses but I was surprised to see that Arcadia Ales hails from Battle Creek. I assumed for some reason they were from Maine even though the park is Acadia not Arcadia. I guess it’s back to studying cereal boxes for me.

Arcadia is a great story. Tim Surprise is a craft beer enthusiast that traded his job in the paper business for the pursuit of a career associated with his love of craft beer. He fell in love with the local Michigan beer scene and in particular – Kalamazoo Brewing (now Bell’s Brewing). He started Arcadia in 1996 and wanted to create world class English-style ales. His beer is currently distributed in just eight states and is a new arrival on New Jersey shelves. Not sure what B Craft means. I’ll just speculate and give it my own definition “Bitch Craft”.

This one is a black IPA and is described as being a double IPA. B Craft checks in at 8.5% ABV and has a reported IBU of 85. Should be rich and should be bitter. We’ll see. Pours cola brown and has a hoppy aroma. It’s got a real nice balance of roasted grain ala burnt toast and earthy and pine hops. It isn’t as rich as I expected and I’d argue that the bitterness doesn’t resemble 85 IBU. I might have expected some subtle sweetness and it’s simply that burnt toast and hop combo. It’s still a fairly nice “sessionable” beer. Meaning you could bring a four pack somewhere and drink the whole thing over the course of the event. I’ll put it at 87 points.

PS – Ascorbic acid is a form of vitamin C

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