Welcome back to FTW’s Beverage of the Week series. Here, we mostly chronicle and review beers, but happily expand that scope to any beverage that pairs well with sports. Yes, even cookie dough whiskey.
I hadn’t heard of HenHouse Brewing, but a PR email put me onto a California brewery with some cool labels. Then a quick search suggested their Big Chicken Double IPA was a wait-in-line beer on par with Pliny the Younger or Heady Topper.
Needless to say, I was intrigued. But since I’m in Wisconsin and HenHouse is one of the few beers outside my grasp up here (this is not a complaint, Wisconsin is wonderful and there are roughly six breweries between my house and the Madison airport, 30 minutes away), the company was gracious enough to send me a couple of their beers for review. A couple of heavy, complex beers with a high bar to clear.
Does HenHouse belong on the beer snobbery tier reserved for breweries like Treehouse or Trillium or Russian River? Could they live up to the legitimately impressive art of their labels? Let’s tuck into a couple offerings and see how it turns out.