From 42 North Brewing’s Premeption New England IPA to Big Ditch Brewing’s 363 IPA and Old First Ward Brewing’s #Smashtag IPA, Buffalo has been blessed with some world class beer releases over the last week or so. Add one more to the list as Thin Man Brewery will release their first ever (solo) canned beer, Hop Pants DDH IPA. You can purchase it at Thin Man on Saturday, January 20 at 11am.
The 6.4% beer is a double dry hopped IPA brewed with English Ale yeast and Azacca, Citra & Simcoe hops, imparting notes and flavors of pink grapefruit, pineapple, melon and pine. This is the next iteration of the Hop Pants IPA line, which features IPA’s brewed with different ingredients.
“It’s not crazy hazy,” Thin Man Head Brewer Rudy Watkins says of Hop Pants, “it’s got a nice little haze going on with lots of pink grapefruit, pine, citrus and all that kind of fun stuff.”
“The original idea behind Hop Pants was to have a series of beers where we were always changing out the hops and always releasing a new beer, sort of the same way Firestone Walker does with their Luponic Distortion IPA series and Stone Brewing does with Enjoy By. This is pretty different from the original Hop Pants we released last year. It’s been a long time since we released a Hop Pants; it’s always fun and exciting to bring something back. It’s also a fun beer name that lends itself to a really fun label. And it’s fun to say.”
Watkins says that he isn’t necessarily nervous or concerned by releasing another canned IPA in the wake of other releases such as Preemption and 363. He says that he is too worried about saturation, because the Buffalo market has shown that it can handle all of these releases.
“It doesn’t make me nervous, although I certainly lost some nights of sleep worrying whether or not it would work. I’d say I’m more excited than nervous because this release will give us the opportunity to get a whole bunch places that we have not gotten before. One week everyone can drink the awesome beer that 42 North released, the next week everyone can drink the awesome beer that we released and then the following week everyone can drink the awesome beer Resurgence Brewing released and it just keeps going.”
Hop Pants will be on sale for $13.99 per four pack (16oz. cans) with a limit of one case per customer. Thin Man has approximately 85 cases to sell, according to Watkins. He adds that some of the usual retail suspects around town should receive some as well, including Village Beer Merchant, Brewed & Bottled, Aurora Brew Works, etc.
“I’m super excited. It’s the first time I have ever dealt with a canning line. The guys from Revolution Canning out of Geneseo were great. It’s going to be a fun day.”
In addition to Hop Pants, Thin Man will also be tapping a pair of new beers for the special occasion. DDH Something Or Other (6.4%), a DDH IPA, a beer bursting with pink grapefruit and pine from Simcoe hops, complimented by melon & lemon notes and Other Truths (6.4%), a DDH Sour IPA, which Thin Man describes as ‘grapefruit juice’ that combines experimental hops and an IPA base to take the New England IPA to the next logical step by adding acidity to the mix.
As for the future, Watkins says that while some of Thin Man’s regular offerings might end up in cans down the road, it makes more sense to make these releases a special thing. “Expect more double dry hopped hazy things, more fruit sours. I would love to have a reasonable priced hoppy Helles or something like that, just something you can crush in the summer. I’d love to get a big Imperial Stout with coffee or coconut into cans. We don’t have a specific schedule. It’s pretty wide open at this point.”
For more information about the impending Hop Pants can release, visit the Facebook event page.
Brian Campbell is a co-founder/Brand Manager of the BNBA’s enthusiast arm, Buffalo Beer League, and writes the weekly Buffalo Beer Buzz column. If you have beer news that should be included in the Beer Buzz, Brian can be reached at buffalobeerleague@aol.com, on Twitter (@buffbeerleague), Instagram (@buffalobeerleague), Facebook (@thebuffalobeerleague) and www.buffalobeerleague.com.
