You know the drill. Make some beer, quit your job, start a beer business. It’s what Mike Stevens and Dave Engbers did when starting the Founder Brewing Company out of Grand Rapids, Michigan in 1997. The road to greatness wasn’t easy. The duo came face-to-face with bankruptcy before they ditched the unremarkable craft beers switching to flavor-packed, complex brews that are Founders’ signature today. Soon enough, Founders became recognized on the national and international brewing scene, with accolades from Ratebeer, Beer Advocate, and the World Beer Cup. Flavorful, complex, and often stronger than your average pint, Founders’ beers aren’t for everyone, and they don’t claim to be. Instead they make beers for themselves, and we can respect that. Today, Peaks and Pints offers a flight of Founders flavor-packed bastards, as well as the extreme opposite. Enjoy our Craft Beer Crosscut 4.19.17: A Flight of Founders.
Founders All Day IPA
4.5% ABV, 42 IBU
Founder’s All Day IPA accounts for 27 percent of all of its production. And we can see why. The All Day IPA pours a golden wheat, and notes of citrus and mango immediately float to the nose, making us crave hot summer days and sessionable beers. All Day IPA has the hoppy characteristics of an IPA, but light on the alcohol side for the style. It’s heavy on the citrus and medium on the pine resin, with a very light bready malt character.
Founders Frootwood
8% ABV
Founders is celebrating its 20th anniversary year throughout 2017, and they intend to do so in style, with a series of new barrel-aged beers including Frootwood. The cherry ale aged in oak barrels hits the tongue with a Battle Royale of flavors: bourbon, cherries and maple syrup. The wood proves itself the star of this beer, adding depth and taming the tart cherry while the maple imposes a velvety texture that lingers for not a moment too long. When you hear someone say a beer is “all over the place,” think Frootwood. Sip this one while pondering the meaning of life.
Dirty Bastard
8.5% ABV, 50 IBU
Close your eyes, take a sip from our taster and off you go to your grandfather’s gentlemen’s club as smoke, leather and the very apparent scent of alcohol fill your nose. Open your eyes to discover a mounted buffalo head on our wall and a murky, mahogany Scotch ale with a much stronger hop flavor and bitter profile than most other strong Scotch ales. Other flavors to note are vinous wine taste and ripe raspberry and cherry flavors. Dirty Bastard offers a flavor and body pleasantly lighter than expected resulting in a very well-balanced accompaniment to our little lodge.
Founders Curmudgeon
9.8% ABV, 50 IBU
Founders calls its Curmudgeon an old ale, as in a traditional English ale mashed at high temperatures then aged after primary fermentation. Old ales are all about the big malts; Curmudgeon is all over that like an old man watching his lawn. It pours a deep mahogany with a light brown head. The nose picks up alcohol amidst molasses, dark fruits, caramel, vanilla and some wood. We can’t place any hops in the nose because the malts are beating down the hops with a cane. The taste mirrors the aroma, with an almost bourbon-like finish.
Founders Backwoods Bastard
11.2% ABV, 50 IBU
That the Backwoods is boozier than its little Bastard brother is only a side note; the big distinguishing factor of this Scotch ale is that it is aged in bourbon barrels, with great undertones of vanilla, bourbon, oak and dark fruits. It’s smooth and creamy, with the mouthfeel of a milk stout and the body of a Scotch ale. Let this sweet Bastard sit for a few minutes for a richer taste as it gets warmer, reducing the sugar-sweet fresh-out-of-the-fridge impression and replacing it with a complex depth. The alcohol cuts away any aftertaste while dominating the aromatics. It’s almost like drinking a fine neat.
