Brewers are looking for cocktails and tiki culture as inspiration – New School Beer + Cider

“I went to him for mezcal or tequila and asked, ‘Where’s the lime and salt?’ He said you don’t need that to appreciate it. I asked him about cocktails and he introduced me to mezcalita: mezcal, orange juice, lime juice, tajin-rimmed glass and some agave syrup; How much syrup depends on your taste. That’s what I imagined when I designed this beer. “

To create mezca limon, Ponce brought 80 mezcal barrels, which is a masterpiece in itself. The trade in barrels is cunning and foreclosed; Ponce’s time in the industry brought him a friend who is a barrel broker who knew he wanted mezcal kegs. His friend traveled to Mexico, where he bought used barrels from around ten family-run mezcal producers.

The barrels themselves are even trickier. All of them are ex-bourbon barrels that were used by the mezcaleros for many years. They can arrive warped, with gaps between the staves or bung holes drilled into the head of the barrel rather than the side. Fortunately, Firestone employs welders who fixed that with stainless steel straps over a rubber stopper so that the keg can be used more efficiently in a rack and the beer is decanted under pressure without the bung bursting and beer pouring out all over the place.

“You can do a visual inspection and you can get some leaks,” Ponce said casually. “Most of them leaked for a while, maybe a day or a day and a half, then sealed them up and I filled them up.” This seemed to be the least of his worries.

Mezcal differs from tequila in a number of ways, mainly due to the variety of agave used and the location in which it is grown, and usually has a smoky component. “Tequila can only use blue agave; Mezcal can use 30-40 species of agave. In all honesty there are maybe 10 that are used. Depending on which agave plant you use, this will affect the taste. One could be herbaceous or have a blackberry or raspberry flavor. And the altitude, whether in the lowlands or in the highlands, influences the taste. They can be bigger, a little sweeter or smaller with more minerality – that’s the terroir. There was a lot of variety [in the barrels]. I taste how I imagine Mexico. “

At first glance, mezca limon is sweet and smoky with a deeper orange aroma than orange. Imagine browsing strange bottles in a bar and stumbling upon an old Carpano Antica vermouth (disclaimer: I have an unusual obsession with beers that smell like vermouth). It has serious depth and there is no aroma-taste discrepancy. The smokiness increases as the beer heats up and envelops your palate with a good amount of residual sugar, but keeps a Covid safe distance from smoked beer. The barrels of mezcal and orange bitters go arm in arm. I would guess that the very slight bitterness actually came from the chili peppers. What would this beer be without each of its carefully selected components? Just a strange barley wine.