Drake’s Aroma Coma Has Been Tweaked for MORE AROMA

(San Leandro, CA) – Drake’s Aroma Coma is one of the newer IPAs from Drake’s Brewing over the past few years. Between Aroma Coma, Hopocolypse and Denoggonizer, it’s safe to say Drake’s is dedicated to the hop game. With that said, they are seemingly never completely satisfied, and are always looking for ways to take these hoppy ales to the next level. Here is word from Drake’s on some tweaks made to this year’s batch of Aroma Coma.

“For the Aroma Coma, we rigged a  hop cannon/torpedo in one of our smaller 15 bbl tanks, fermentor #13 to be exact. Basically, we stuffed #13 with the dry hop addition for Aroma Coma, purged the tank with CO2, and filled it with Aroma Coma from our 120bbl fermentor. Then, using a beer pump, we circulated the beer and hops together for 20 minutes to create a beautifully hazy hoppy beer slurry, and left it for 24 hours to infuse the hops into the beer. After 24 hours, we bubbled CO2 into the tank again just in case, and then pumped the hopped up Aroma Coma back into the large tank and circulated it all together again. The hop utilization from this process is intense (and intensely delicious in my opinion).”

For the Aroma Flora Saison beer we used the peppery, dry, fruity saison yeast from Henhouse Brewing to make a pale gold saison with pilsner and rye malts. Post-boil we ran the wort through a hop back filled with German Saphir whole cone hops and calendula flowers. Just after fermentation was finished we pulled a few growlers of the beer and added various amounts of the “dry-flower” additions to each in different ratios and combinations. The next day, at a sensory meeting of brewers and other staff, we tasted each version and decided our favorite combination and ratios of flowers for the “dry-flowering”. After fermentation we then “dry-flowered” it with elderflower, rose hips, chamomile, and fresh lemon zest. The floral, fruit and spice aromatics in Aroma Flora put it right at home in our Aroma series of beers, but we think it also speaks to people who may not be the biggest hopheads in the world.