A Storm of New Brews Coming From Sixpoint

This fall, the ever-creative and ever-prolific guys at Sixpoint continue to churn out new brews via experimental recipes and unique techniques. We caught up with Aaron Ekroth, creative director at Sixpoint Brewery, to learn more about the autumnal lineup in anticipation of this weekend’s Brooklyn Pour event.

Are there any seasonal or new brews in the works?

We recently released our Autumnation fall seasonal beer. In previous years, Autumnation was brewed with pumpkin and fresh-picked wet hops that are available only once a year. This year, we have migrated our focus away from the pumpkin and entirely toward the fresh-hop harvest character of the beer. It’s a big undertaking. We ship hundreds of pounds of hops overnight from Washington State and put them directly into the fermenter.

We had our fans vote via an online poll on the particular hop strain to be used fresh in the beer. This year’s fan favorite is a new-to-the-market hop called Mosaic, named for its complexity of flavors, of course.

Then, in lieu of our Diesel winter seasonal, this November we are releasing a special beer project called the Global Warmer. We typically don’t brew beers to any particular style, so this isn’t a traditional winter warmer-style brew filled with spices and sugar. Instead, it’s a rich and hoppy red-hued ale that acknowledges our changing beer climate and everything that comes along with it. It’ll be a 7 percent beer sold on draft and in 12-ounce cans.

We also recently released a 6.6 percent Oktoberfest Lager on draft for a NYC-Centric Oktoberfest-ival, though distribution on that is rather limited!

Can you tell me about the new Beer Finder App?

We developed our Beer Finder App to give Sixpoint fans mobile access to locating our beers, learning more about our beers, and staying connected with updates and happenings that Sixpoint is involved with. The app is populated by data throughout our distribution network; when the beer arrives at a bar, restaurant, or store, it informs our database (i.e. it isn’t managed live by the thousands of accounts we support). We have a free version of the app available for both Android and iOS. We also have an active web version of the technology available.

I was on your site recently and spotted Spice of Life and Mad Scientist. Can you tell me more about those?

The Spice of Life Series and Mad Scientists’ Series are ongoing draft-only series that we brew.

Mad Scientists is a bi-monthly brew, which represents our commitment to innovation and formulation in brewing. Sometimes the beers are creative reinterpretations of near-forgotten beers like the Gose, Grätzer, or Lichtenhainer–other times they are a craft interpretation of a quotidien beer like the Mexican Adjunct Lager, and others are collaborations with like-minded craft producers.

The Spice of Life Series is a monthly beer project around the flavor component of hops in the brewing process. We vary the strain of hops each month throughout the year while holding all other elements of the brew as a foundation (same malt bill, yeast, alcohol by volume, etc). Fans can better understand the flavors brought about in “single-hop” beer.

Sixpoint will be pouring Resin, Righteous Ale, Crisp, and Autumnation at Saturday’s Brooklyn Pour event.