John Gillooly / Brewmaster, Drake’s Brewing, San Leandro, California
Drake’s Brewing Company, an independent craft brewery in San Leandro, has crafted innovative brews in the San Francisco Bay Area for 30 years. Drake’s Sizzle Fizz is a citrusy slant on trendy Champagne-style brut IPAs, featuring The Perfect Purée Blood Orange Concentrate.
As Drake’s describes it, Sizzle Fizz delivers dry and refreshing notes of blood orange, passion fruit, pineapple, pine and lemongrass to complement the sun-filled days and cooling nights of late summer.
Drake’s and The Perfect Purée are contemporaries in the California culinary revolution, founded in 1988 and 1989, respectively, with equal dedication to flavor and innovation. Drake’s started out in a former Dodge factory in San Leandro as part of the early wave of Bay Area microbreweries driving the California craft brew craze. Drake’s brewers have set the standard for West Coast-style ales with their dedication to clean, high-quality, original and proudly hop-forward beers.
Sizzle Fizz (8.4% ABV) is no exception. Full Pint Craft Beer News describes the IPA as bright and crisp with a hoppy aroma up front as well as substantial hop bitterness in the back. A bitterness enhanced by the citrus pith from the Blood Orange, Brewmaster John Gillooly says The Perfect Purée Blood Orange Concentrate is easy to use and meets his standards for quality.
“We add The Perfect Purée Blood Orange Concentrate towards the end of fermentation to deliver deep citric aromatics,” he says.
“We really only want the aroma, which is why we add the concentrate while the yeast is still able to digest the sugars. The Blood Orange Concentrate also adds a bit of pithy bitterness that we like in our IPA’s.”
Drake’s is relentlessly experimental and has such an extensive list of limited release one-off and seasonal beers that its site features a Beer Library. It’s no surprise then that it’s been experimenting with the dry, pale Champagne-esque brut IPA’s since they arrived on the San Francisco beer scene in early 2018.
Find your perfect beer by name or zip code with Drake’s Beer Finder.