Stumptown Ales tests canning market

Stumptown Ales is now canning a few of its brews for sale exclusively at the brewery. Their canning machine is a very small, one-at-a-time type thing. It is very labor intensive process, so they only can a barrel or half-barrel a week depending how busy they think they will be at the taproom. That means only about 120 to 240 cans are produced at a time. That is 30 to 60 four-packs of the 16 oz. cans.

“We don’t can every beer, just select ones,” said Jon Robeson, brewery owner and head brewer. Over the past few weeks Holy Citra Double IPA is the one they’ve canned the most. They have also canned Over the Tip Top Breakfast Stout and some other heavy hitting IPAs: Six Legged Frog, Truth Karma Hops, and Multiple Hopgasms.

Robeson says they are going to step up canning before Christmas, getting ready for their busiest time of year. He finds having canned beer is really helpful to their bartenders during busy times, as compared to having to stop and fill a growler. He also says lots of people come in who don’t own a growler or don’t have one with them and don’t want to buy a growler. He has found that a lot of folks simply prefer the convenience of 16 oz. cans over any other package.

While Stumptown is enjoying testing out canning on a small scale, it’s too early to say if this will lead to a full-scale canning operation for them. Before that would make sense, the brewery would need a substantially enlarged production space with room for more tanks, larger canning equipment, and more cold storage — none of which can be accomplished in its cramped current location. Will that happen? We will just have to wait and see. In the meantime, you can stop by the brewery to purchase your Stumptown cans.

Multiple Hopgasms & Six Legged Frog cans

Two of Stumptown Ales’ latest canned products are Six Legged Frog and Multiple Hopgasms. Robeson provided some interesting background info on each.

Stumptown brewers have been tweaking Multiple Hopgasms over the last six or eight months. The original yeast in it didn’t work out exactly the way they wanted. They switched up and went to a London Fog yeast from White Labs for this latest batch. Robeson thinks it really came out well.

“It tastes like it’s a beer from Trillium or Treehouse,” he says. “It has the wonderful flavors and juiciness, the mouthfeel, and it’s foggy.”

The yeast is the primary difference between Multiple Hopgasms and Holy Citra or Truth Karma Hops. The grain bill is also similar to their other big IPAs, except some white wheat is thrown into Multiple Hopgasms to add to the beer’s texture.

Most all their big IPAs include a dose of corn sugar to help them clock in north of 8% ABV while keeping a lighter overall feel. Multiple Hopgasms is substantially dry hopped like a typical contemporary double IPA should be. It’s now dry-hopped with Citra, Mosaic, and Simcoe hops.

Six Legged Frog was Stumptown’s first large batch hazy juicy IPA and among the first by any WV brewery. Robeson calls Six Legged Frog “sort of a little brother to Multiple Hopgasms.” It uses a different yet similar yeast, which along with the wheat, produces a hazy beer. Citra, Amarillo, and Columbus make up the hops menu. At 6.8% ABV, it’s a standard strength IPA that has proven to be quite popular for the brewery. 

Robeson says that in the past, he has had some problems keeping his hazy IPAs hazy enough. Sometimes they just cleared up too much. With the new yeasts he is using, he believes that problem has been solved.  

Review Panel tries the cans

Using the samples provided by Jon Robeson, Brilliant Stream put together a panel of five reviewers to taste the beers. All are experienced craft beer drinkers and fans of juicy, hazy IPA. Here is what we found.

Multiple Hopgasms

Our reviewers really liked Multiple Hopgasms in the can. Its juicy tropical flavors were a hit. You’d have to label the beer’s mouthfeel as smooth. It felt silky on the tongue. It was nicely foggy, though not milky. The beer had just enough bitterness to balance its fruitiness, but you couldn’t really call this beer bitter in any traditional sense.

Medium light body. It hid its 8 percent ABV very well and was extremely drinkable. It could have used a bit more carbonation. Overall, this beer is a great example of the modern New England IPA style and is certainly competitive with beers of this style from other well-known breweries. It is among the very best IPAs produced in the state. 

Compared to the draft version, this canned Multiple Hopgasms is more hazy and  juicy, probably due to the new yeast in this latest batch. The difference is very noticeable. 

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Multiple Hopgasms was beautiful.  It had all the flavor of a fresh keg and was much more juicy than what I’ve had out of a growler even the same day as being filled. Tons of melon and mango and citrus.  No bitter, a great NE IPA and fantastic beer. — Dave Mincer, review panelista

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Six Legged Frog IPA

The panelists found Six Legged Frog easy to like. Appearance is a hazy, medium gold color. The blend of citrus and pine aromas were attractive. The light resinous and mildly tropical flavors were appealing. More grassy than juicy. It felt more  bitter than Multiple Hopgasms. This beer leans a little more to a traditional American IPA in flavor but doesn’t have the dry bitter finish of a west coast IPA. Tasting this beer alongside Multiple Hopgasms, it was equally chewy in mouthfeel. One reviewer found it to be one of the “hoppiest” Stumptown beers. Medium body with 6.8% ABV. Smooth finish with a pleasant, lightly bitter aftertaste. Overall, Six Legged Frog is a nice drinking brew.

Some reviewers found Six Legged Frog in the can to be seriously under-carbonated making the taste somewhat flat. If the beer was better carbonated it would have delivered more taste to the palate. This could have been a single can issue. One reviewer noticed a change in the beer’s hopping since the last time he drank it. “They’ve changed it. It was previously more tropical juicy than it is now.  I’d swear to it.”

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One thing that stood out to me about about both of them was that they were much hazier and juicy than I expected. Definitely more so than any time I’d had them on draft. — Jess Godbey, review panelista

Review panelists included David Mincer, Lynette Stewart, Chris Godwin, Jess Godbey, and Charles Bockway.

More on Stumptown from Brilliant Stream
Stumptown is 2017’s WV Brewery of the Year 
Questions for Jon and Cindy  
Stumptown adds 10-barrel beauty  
Stumptown hopkicks WV beer scene

 Stumptown Ales website link