The western front

Once upon a time, you'd never pour a Flying Fish beer hopped with Cascades.

When the brewery first started sending beer out the door back in 1996, ESBs dosed with Cascades were the rage and found all over as the craft beer market started taking hold in New Jersey. You couldn't swing a mash rake without hitting one, and Sierra Nevada Pale Ale taught a lot of people what the most widely used craft beer hop tasted like.

But Flying Fish steered clear of the ubiquitous West Coast hop for its ESB, opting instead for a combination of Chinook and Mount Hood. (Their ESB now uses Magnum, Fuggles and Yakima Golding).

And lo, these many years Cascades have never been a signature flavor in a Flying Fish beer.

But there's an end point to everything.

So for the first time ever, Flying Fish will put Cacades in a beer, in fact christening 2012 with a draft-only hops-happy red ale at 7% ABV that will round out its flavor profile with Columbus and Chinook hops.

In a note on their website, Flying Fish promises this reddish-hued January release will have a piny nose, malty background and big hop finish, calling it a West West Coast hoppy red, once for the hops, the other for the brewery's location on the west side of New Jersey.