Bear Republic Brewing Company Racer 5 India Pale Ale
Where it all began. My first time with Bear Republic’s Racer 5 on tap was at the Zeitgeist biker (mountain, street, motorized and otherwise) bar in San Francisco. I clearly remember marveling at two things in particular: the fantastic pint of hoppy creaminess I was imbibing, and the dude sitting at the other end of the wooden picnic table who proceeded to roll, and then promptly smoke something that smelled equally as delicious as the floral, fruity aroma lingering from the frothy, creamy head of my pint. This was the beginning of the lupulin threshold shift, the shift that pushed such respectable pale ales as Sierra Nevada and Stone solely into the realm of ‘beer pong’ beers, or perhaps session beers if, unkindly, such session is limited to 10 seconds.
At 7% abv, Racer pours a bright amber color, and for a bottle conditioned ale, remains rather clear, unless in your drunken gaucherie you inadvertently dump the sediment in your glass, or you happen to be down with that sort of dirty thing. Now, if I were more like Ben Franklin and less of an atheist, I’d be tempted to claim that the vitamin B-rich sediment was further proof “that god loves us and wants us to be happy.” (For those not up on their homeopathy, vitamin B supposedly eases the pain of a hangover. If you want further details, look it up yourself.) A beverage that induces euphoria (I’ll stay strictly positive) and a has a built-in remedy in case of over indulgence- genius, no perfection. Anyways, back to the beer…
According to the self-proclaimed hop-head brewer, “The goal was to create a base for showing off the unique floral qualities of two Pacific Northwest hops, Columbus and Cascade.” Mission accomplished, excellent work! In my mind, this is what an IPA is all about: Hops up front, and a minimal amount of malt in the background to support it.
97 points. A definite lock on the shortlist of superior IPAs. (scale calibration? Pliny the Elder: 100 points)
(19 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)
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I love having new reviews to read! No more excuses BJR, you write great reviews (great fuckin beer too).
I second J David on this review–no more hiding in the shadows BJR, you’ve got work to do! I was recently at a great bar Manderes, in Folsom, CA, and Racer 5 appeared to be a favorite there…unfortunately as the DD, I experienced it less than I would have liked! Next time…
Great. Now I’m the slacker. What a review!
I think it ought to be mentioned here that the 22 oz. bottle is much better than the recently produced six pack bottles. For some reason, the six pack’s 12 oz. bottles just don’t measure up to the quality and taste of the 22 oz bomber. A good experiment is to try the 22 oz. bottle and a 12 oz. bottle side by side. It is almost a completely different beer!
Hutt, I thought about mentioning the bottle format issue, but then I started getting paranoid about the already increased scarcity of Racer in 22s at Bevmo.
I just tore into one of these a few minutes ago. As a longtime homebrewer with a relatively low lupulin threshold, I have to say that I absolutely love this beer despite it’s gigantic hop load. In fact, this is a true gateway beer: I can see it’s going to lead to an all-new set of vices for me. The super fresh aroma hops on top of this little bitch take me back to the last time I cracked the vacuum seal on the cascade hops I used to put in my homebrew: cracking the bottle open is just like that– you get hit with this uber-fresh wave of citrusy hoppy love.
Have you had it on tap? It is even easier on tap, like the cheerleader everybody has their way with.