(San Marcos, CA) – Some news for the hopheads…
There’s a shake-up! Port Brewing Mongo Double IPA is going year-round. The beer was introduced only on tap early this year but will make its first appearance in bottles sometime early next year. The move means that Hop-15 will no longer be available year-round, only occasionally.
Says Port Brewing Spokesman, Sage Osterfeld, “The yield on Hop 15 is very low — 15 hoppings at 15 minute increments results in about 35% loss during the boil making it a very expensive beer to produce. Hop 15 will become a seasonal beer to balance out our other two seasonal IPAs, Anniversary and High Tide.”
Mongo has proven to be quite popular with locals since its debut as what was, at the time, a one-off beer. It has an interesting little story behind it as well:
“We have brew cats — two: Amarillo and Cascade. A couple years ago, Cascade had five kittens. Four went off to good homes and one — a giant of a kitten — stayed. The cat’s name was Columbus (aka “CBus”) and he was nearly twice the size of his mother in just four months. He was also quite obnoxious. Jumped up on everything. Ate people’s food, drank patron’s beers, etc. So the brewhouse boys started calling him ‘Mongo’ because whatever ‘Mongo Like, Mongo Did.’ He was a real pain.
Vince came in the day after Thanksgiving and found him dead in the parking lot. No obvious injuries or anything, just dead. As irritating as he was, people really missed him. So Mike, our head brewer, decided to brew a beer in honor of him. A big DIPA made with Columbus and Cascade hops.”
The other story is that the beer originally known as Moon Lit Sessions is undergoing a name change. Osterfeld notes, “It was originally called Moon Lit Sessions after Moonlight Beach, a popular night surfing spot here in San Diego. However, it was changed to avoid confusion with Moonlight Brewing.” The brewery then called it Midnight Sessions and that stuck for a while. The new name will be Midnight Expression; the change is a courtesy to Full Sail Brewing who has trademarked the name “Session.”
I’m surprised Full Sail was able to trademark “Session.” That seems to me merely descriptive of the product. I.e., a session beer. And descriptive terms can’t be trademarked. I am guessing this one slipped by the trademark examiner, who probably wasn’t familiar enough with the beer industry to know what “session” means in the beer context, and that Full Sail failed to disclose this to the USPTO.
Interesting story. BC Toby has a bottle of Midnight Sessions he’ll be trying on the show soon. Port Brewing is one of the best breweries in Southern California, and they’re pizza is awesome! Didn’t know that Full Sail trademarked “Session”. Is Port trying to prove it’s coolness after the whole Moylans issue?
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