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Drink Fri Jun 10 2011
Summer Drinking Series: Lagunitas Zephyr
There's an awful lot of history crammed into a glass of Zephyr, the new collaborative brew from Lagunitas, the Publican, and Big Star. Brewed in the historic steam beer tradition (without refrigeration), it's evocative of both Prohibition and the California gold rush -- appropriate, given its West Coast roots. The name Zephyr, too, recalls the Amtrak Zephyr line, which runs from Chicago to San Francisco -- or perhaps the Pioneer Zephyr train, which sits at the Museum of Science and Industry. Also, it tastes pretty good.
Not quite as fruity or as lingeringly hoppy as an IPA, Zephyr is a good balance of bitter and quenching. A good beer for a hot summer day (like this week's), when you want to cool of with something that tastes distinctly like, well, beer. Correction, when you want to cool off, with beer, and get a little toasted. At 7.2% abv, it will bliss you out pretty quickly -- particularly if consumed on a sunny patio, or in the warm, bright garage space at Big Star. The wonderfully composed, transcendent tacos de panza there, by the way, seem like they were designed to complement Zephyr -- not the other way around.
As of this past Monday, you can add Zephyr to your summer drinking list at any Chicago bar with a Lagunitas account. Only 500 barrels of the stuff were made, and only 200 of those were shipped along to us in Chicago, so when it's gone, it's gone.
