I had planned on writing about a completely different beer for the beer of the week. Then, I saw Brews Brothers in Galveston was giving away teku glasses with a purchase of their custom cask of Karbach Brewing’s Hop Delusion. Once I saw this, I knew I had a new option for this week.
Karbach’s custom casks are unique in the Houston market. Much of the Houston-area bars that are craft beer-centric have been invited to go to the brewery and choose their own hops to customize a cask for release at the bar. The version available at Brews Brothers was a blend of 40% Sorachi Ace, 20% East Kent Golding, 20% Mandarina Bavaria, and 20% Citra hops.
This blend of Hop Delusion was quite a bit different from the original. With a much more dank aftertaste than the original version, I found the cask to be more enjoyable than a normal keg. The lighter carbonation allowed for the flavor of lemon and pineapple to be more intense and the hoppiness of the double IPA was surprisingly less bitter. There have been times I’ve cracked open a can of Hop Delusion and found it to be overly harsh. Fortunately, this was near perfection.
The folks at Brews Brothers really knew how to pick the hops. I hope to sample other bars’ custom casks to see how the different hop selections impact the beer. Although I don’t know if anybody can get a better deal than two teku glasses and two pints of double dry-hopped Hop Delusion for $16.