Craft Beer Tasting of Indian Wells Death Valley Pale Ale and Deschutes Hop Henge IPA

Season 2, Episode 7: Does your local gas station sell craft beer? You’d be surprised at the selections you can find in Las Vegas, such as Indian Wells Death Valley Pale Ale and Deschutes Hop Henge IPA. Armed with a new wireless microphone and video provided by special guest Terry Whitener with Dubli, our latest show featured these two craft beers at one of Las Vegas’ best dive bars, Cheers Bar, where both came up strong as you can tell from the video archive below:

We initially discovered Indian Wells on our Money Plays show earlier in January. Located in Inyoken, California, Indian Wells Brewing uses pure artesian spring water in their brewing process to produce some really nice craft beer selections. The Death Valley Desert Pale in particular is a classic pale ale made with lots of 2-row malt and hopped with clean Cascade hops from Yakima Valley. This craft beer was recommended to us so we decided to showcase this light tasting, 4.7% alcohol pale ale on the show. As you saw in the video, the pour was a hazy light brown color which gave way to an interesting earthy type of aroma, almost ginger-like. It tasted equally well, a very earthy, subtle and slightly bitter taste that mellows out in the end. The result is a well-balanced sessionable beer that we recommend you try if you can find it locally. For those in attendance at Cheers for the show, the beer did not last long – a testament of why you should try it yourself.

Then we moved onto hard hitting hops! The Hop Henge IPA is an Experimental IPA from one of our favorite craft beer brewers, Deschutes Brewery in Bend, Oregon. We’ve featured Deschutes a number of times on the show, and have never been disappointed with their beers. The Hop Henge IPA was no exception. This beer rates highly on just about everyone’s beer scale, which made it a perfect selection to feature on the show.

With an alcohol level of 10.6%, we found this beer to possess a deep golden crystal clear pour, with a fluffy white head that lingered. The hop aroma was amazing from the start and the first sip hit you hop hard like a train! The initial bitterness quickly followed with a smooth finish to make this quite a complex beer that actually had a light-beer type of taste for an extremely unique tasting beer. You really have to try it yourself to appreciate how masterfully Deschutes has crafted this great overall beer. Great smell – great taste – great hops. Go to your local gas station, er, I mean beer distributor, and see if you can find it. If you like a hoppy beer, get it! It’s highly recommended!

And speaking of highly recommended, don’t forget to support Dameron as he’ll be shaving off his hair on March 2nd for St. Baldricks Foundation in an effort to help children with cancer. Visit Dameron’s page here if you would like to donate to the cause or get more information.