Epic Brewing - Hop Syndrome Lager (Release #7)

Hop Syndrome is one of my favorites from Epic Brewing. It's an American Lager. It's also just about the lowest ABV beer that Epic brews.

Stats from the website:
Malts: Pilsner, Light Munich Malt, Carapils

Boil Hops: Calypso, Crystal
Hopback: whole leaf Aramis
Dry Hops: Crystal, Calypso

ABV: 4.8%

I think of this beer as essentially being a dry hopped American Pilsner. The body is thinner than a true pilsner without the corn flavors you would associate with a macrobrew.

The hop flavors are what this beer is about. Don't let the name mislead you, it's not a "hop bomb". It's a hoppy pilsner. And it doesn't take much dry hopping to hop-up a crisp Pilsner / American Lager.

Dinner at the Green Pig

One of the trends that I’m starting to notice in Salt Lake is that some bars and restaurants are paying local breweries to make house beers for them.   Iggies has a couple house beers and as I discovered last night, so does the Green Pig.

The Green Pig ) is a nice sports and music bar in down town Salt Lake (31 East 400 South).  It is one of the newer bars in Salt Lake started up by the former owners of Port O’ Call – a very popular bar in Salt Lake that was the victim of Eminent Domain with the construction of the new Federal courthouse.

In the interest of full disclosure – I don’t know the owners of The Green Pig but I do have friends that are in a funk bank, The Vision, and they perform at The Green Pig frequently.

I was there last night with friends and my wife enjoying the open jam – electric blues night.  Highly recommended.  I’m hoping to be back on Friday (August 3) when The Vision will be performing again.

Last night, I sampled the chips & salsa, the hot wings, a Reuben soup, and the Green Pig Pilsner.  The chips are traditional homemade tortilla chips (much thicker than something you would typically buy in a store) and were quite tasty.  The salsa, however, was mostly chopped tomatoes.  While the tomatoes were fresh and very good, it takes more than chopped tomatoes to make a salsa fresca.  My opinion, it could have used some cilantro, onions, and peppers.