Moonlight Brewing - Santa’s Tippel Ale

This weekend the wife and I met some friends for a Christmas brunch at Flavor. Brunch isn’t breakfast, and is more like lunch, especially since I had a sandwich, so I ordered up a beer from Moonlight Brewing. Got a problem with that? Didn’t think so. But ordering a Moonlight at 11 am isn’t always as easy as it sounds.

I always love a Death and Taxes, but felt I was ignoring the rest of Moonlight’s offerings, so I asked the server what the Seasonal was and got the simple answer of Homegrown. Fantastic, I missed the wet hop festival and the only exposure I’ve had was the Harvest Ale from Sierra Nevada, which left me a little disappointed. I was rather surprised when I was served an almost black ale with a frothy white head. The aroma is nothing but hops. I sipped at the foam, and got even more hops. When I finally got to the beer, the hops continued to carry the beer. The fresh hops really have a distinct character that you don’t get in other beers. This was a great beer and if I had an afternoon free would have had another.

Now here’s where the story gets interesting. I get home and send an email to Brian Hunt of Moonlight Brewing (well, actually, he is Moonlight Brewing). He tells me that the Homegrown/Greenbud Ale hasn’t been on tap at Flavor for some time and that they should be pouring Santa’s Tipple Ale. Brian says the Tipple is a dark, roasty ale and this year was the first year he dry hopped it with fresh hops, the same homegrown fresh hops as the Homegrown ale. Sounds like what I had. Either way, fantastic brew, and I’m glad I wasn’t making up the fresh hop taste.

And nothing about this encounter could be straight forward, so one more bit of news about the Tipple. You’re probably thinking I made a typo and mean “tripel.” Nope, Tipple is the name and Moonlight has been brewing it for 14 years. But with the increased popularity of Belgian beers, more people have been getting confused by the name, expecting a super strong pale Belgian ale and getting a dry hopped roasty dark ale. Brian says there is a name change in the works and Tipple has been distributed under a few names so far this year. Keep an eye out next winter to see what he comes up with.