By Jeremy Danner, Boulevard Brewer

January welcomes the release of our most popular seasonal offering, Irish Ale. Our homage to the Irish Red style of beer is itself a variation on the early English and Irish Pale Ales. At Boulevard, we believe that a good beer begs you to have another and take this philosophy to heart when crafting our beers. Irish Ale is no exception. It's a beer that is suitable while the Midwest weather is still quite chilly, yet with it's crisp and toasted malt characteristics, it proves a very drinkable beer even as winter breaks and we approach St. Patrick’s Day.

The last few batches of Boulevard Irish Ale are making their way through the brew house today. We approach this beer much the same as we do our Pale Ale, with a delicate balancing act between caramel malt, a slight roastiness, and the spicy, herbal bitterness of Saaz and Sterling hops. The deep garnet color comes from a blend of specialty malts in the mash tun, as well as an addition of milled chocolate malt in the lauter tun. This technique allows us to achieve a deep garnet color without extracting the roasty bitterness from the chocolate malt in the mash.

These final batches of Irish Ale will spend most of January in our cellar while previous batches have been already racked into kegs or stored in our warehouse where bottle conditioning is taking place just in time for the brew to begin hitting the market next week. In addition to being one of our favorite beers around the brewery, Irish Ale holds the promise of a new year and near the end of it’s season, a welcome relief from the blustery cold.