Tough Love 2020, for all my purposes, is Perfect. It leaves NOTHING to be desired. It’s malty, rich, deep, complex, chewy, BALANCED, food-friendly, complete, and immensely thoughtful; one of the brainiest jobs EVER of crafting a great beer.
Crux Fermentation Project is one of the five most significant new breweries to open in the US in the past ten years. Period.
This somewhat cloistered little city, out in the middle of the Central Oregon High Desert, is to brewing what Rome is to religion, Detroit is to cars, and Seattle is to dateless techies.
This adulation of frat-boy tastes ignores a major FACT of the Craft Beer Phenomenon: we all went All In on craft beer because we wanted flavors – and not the same three that were all BudMillerCoorsPabst had to offer.
These two ales are all the evidence that any sensible person needs to conclude that Crux Fermentation Project is well and truly into its maturity as what they gave every indication of being from their outset: one of America’s great breweries.
Here in the cradle of the world’s hops production, the use of and experimentation with hops borders on a religion. And Larry Sidor is arguably the High Priest.
Crux Gypsy Coolship – the idea and this beer – is a blast of fresh air, fresh inspiration, and fresh flavors that blows the cobwebs off a crowded beer culture.
As with everything else from Crux, Job One is drinkability and in that both Lawn Party and Cruising Altitude prove out among the best beers from the Northwest, in 2019.
