More: Do you know that feeling, that certain days in your life turn out to be historical? But you only realize much later? To us at Amager Bryghus, March 9th 2011was such a day, when we had the closest we’ve ever had to a royal visit at the brewery. Royalty to us means real hop heroes, and in this regard, the Californian west coast is their kingdom. Our visitors were Tomme Arthur and Mike Rodriguez, brewmasters at Port Brewing in San Diego. At that time San Diego was the hot spot capital of US style IPAs, with the San Diego IPAs later branching out to be called West Coast IPAs. It wasn’t our first international collaboration beer, but the beer we brewed that day, Wookiee IPA, would become almost iconic, at least among Amager hopheads appreciating the high level IBUs. It must’ve been one of the first Danish IPAs to showcase Sorachi Ace, which to many is a love or hate hop. But enough people loved Wookiee IPA for us to keep it as a regular beer for all of this time. And we still have Wookiee in the fermenters right now. Mike Rodriguez has remained a very good friend of Amager; these days with his own brewery. So last year our head brewer Jacob Storm ventured out to Santa Cruz, California, and Woodhouse Brewing to brew a new West Coast IPA with Mike. Over there it was called “Skål”, but we have brought it back with us, and in the Amager version we call it “The King of California”. This is our tribute to Mike and all the unsung Californian heroes of West Coast IPA.
