Kilowatt brewery, Ocean Beach, San Diego
In the hip neighbourhood of Ocean Beach, where all the streets run down to the sea and are lined with lime and lemon trees, Kilowatt is one of several local breweries. To be precise, the bar in Ocean Beach is their tap room; the actual brewery is in nearby Kearny Mesa.
As I walk in, I am welcomed by loud metal music and a very friendly guy behind the bar, Mikey. Kilowatt may be a small-batch brewery, but their selection of beers is hugely impressive, including their alcohol levels! I’ve recently been a rather big fan of pale ales, India or American style. One thing I’ve noticed on my trip to California is that their pale ales tend to be a lot stronger than those back home in Europe. 7% and up is standard, and you get double and triple IPAs that go up to a whopping 11-12% ABV!
Kilowatt is a family undertaking: it was only five years ago that a brother and sister from Cleveland, Ohio and their spouses decided to make beer. What started out as a tiny garage project quickly grew into a successful business. Today they have two tasting rooms besides the brewery in Kearny Mesa. Mikey, my expert guide as I select from a long list of beers, had started out as the guy by the entrance checking people’s IDs. Now he’s behind the bar, and loves the social aspect of it. He has been converted from vodka-soda mixers to beer, but when I ask him if he’d like to make his own some day, he says he prefers life behind the bar. ‘Brewers tend to be a bit antisocial, whereas I love the interaction with people’, he says.
I taste a flight of four that I hope will be representative of what this brewery, a Google favourite, does. The beers generally have several hops, up to five varieties. All these are listed on the ‘menu’ above the bar for the discerning drinker.
I start with a Cucumber Sour. Sours I’ve never come across before, and as Mikey explains, they’re essentially spoiled beer. When back in the olden days the monks were rolling all those barrels, and everything took a loooong time, things sometimes went pear-shaped and the beer got spoiled. The new trend is to consider these sour beers as a quirky alternative and not as waste to be poured down the drain. Their alcohol level tends to be low and they are often flavoured, and the Kilowatt sours, Mikey tells me, are much more user-friendly than some really extreme ones produced by other breweries.
My cucumber sour has very low alcohol, just over 3%, a distinctly cucumber nose and flavour, and a bit of salinity. I say cucumber but I’m actually wondering whether it’s more melon – have you ever noticed how similar the two taste? Delightful toasty grainy finish. This sour is definitely sour, as if someone had poured in the juice of a couple of lemons, without the citrusy flavours. But not at all bad, and because of the low alcohol it feels very refreshing!
The Kilowatt Pale is an APA of 5.4% alcohol. It’s got a classic style with tropical fruit and pretty intense hops. Very enjoyable, but not terribly unique, I’d say.
Then on to a hazy gold beer, Mikey’s favourite, the Hazezoose Hazy IPA. Alcohol 6.69%, unfiltered. Tastes bready, malty, is less intense on fruit and has a long, hoppy finish. Does it also have a vague flavour of wet kitchen cloth lurking in the background…?
My fourth is the 250 KWH IPA, with fairly high alcohol at 7.4%. Malty nose, palate feels creamier, heavier, richer than the others. More malt too, and less fruit, though tropical notes still come through both on nose and on palate. The warmer the beer gets, the more pronounced the coffee-malt character is. Spicy, hoppy finish.
Then as a bonus I am offered their Mexican Lager – and it’s lovely. Flavoursome blend of malt and corn. The malt brings toasty grainy flavours, the corn sweetness. Delicious!
And then a second bonus, for the road: the OB Bubble Dubbel, with Belgian yeast (OB = Ocean Beach). Well, the name is no coincidence: Bubble Dubbel starts out with a distinct flavour of bubble gum. That’s overtaken, however (and fortunately), by Belgian beer characteristics, that sweet luscious richness. Pretty dark for a Belgian beer, this one has a dark amber colour, coffee on the nose, and a long finish, where again the bubble gum appears, mixed with rich roasted flavours. Alcohol 8.4%.
Blaufränkisch is a late-ripening variety, has enormous acidity, and is prone to overproduction. All these explain why great care and attention are needed both in the vineyard and in the winery if one is to produce a high-quality wine. The powerful colour and tannins of the grape are some positive features, which also contribute to the ageing potential of the wines. At the Danube tasting there were several wines where I felt that the acidity has not been harmoniously integrated into the overall personality of the wines; the unruly, sometimes overwhelming acidity can easily oppress all other characteristics. At other times it was the overuse of oak that created an imbalance. All in all, my impression was that it is not easy to produce an outstanding wine from Blaufränkisch grapes. At the same time I was delighted to see the large number of well-made wines. When I asked Elizabeth Gabay MW, an expert of central European wines, about this somewhat uneven playing field, she explained that in past decades Blaufränkisch was commonly used as a workhorse variety, producing lots of rustic, unsophisticated, overly acidic wines. It is this past inheritance that needs to be superseded by contemporary winemakers – and many seem to have succeeded in this.
All the wines I tasted on the stand of the Bodri winery of Szekszárd, for example, had a lot of structure and concentration. One reason for this, as I found out, was that they always leave a few bunches to ripen right until the end of the harvest. These then arrive at the winery with very high sugar levels and lend body and density to the wine. Another common feature of these wines is a spicy flavour reminiscent of cloves and Christmas cakes, which, apparently, is due to the spicy character of the Hungarian oak barrels used at the winery.
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