Lagunitas Little Sumpin' WILD and More on Date Codes

I very much enjoy shaking things up. Whether it be dancing strangely, trying new food, or tasting a mash-up of two different beer styles, I'm all in. When it comes to beer, I like it even more when I don't know what to expect. I think a nice experiment for the future would be to buy a bunch of beer singles, peel off the labels, cover the tops of the caps with sticky dots, and try to guess the style and name of each beer. I'll keep that idea on the back burner... 

Any beer that breaks the style mold is a good beer in my book. The other day, I picked up Lagunitas Little Sumpin' WILD from the liquor store. I've had the regular Little Sumpin' Sumpin', and the Little Sumpin' Extra. I loved both, and was excited to find WILD. There's no description on the label. Not even the style was listed. It was a grab bag of a beer, and I think I lucked out...

Lagunitas Little Sumpin’ WILD Belgian Style IPA

BG Poured from a 12 fl oz (355 ml) bottle into a stemmed tulip, 8.9% ABV, OG 1.079, 72.5 IBU, Bottled 09/12/14

A Gold in color with a yellowish-white head that leaves little, fluffy pillows of lacing on the glass. Fairly cloudy.

A Spicy hops, pepper, touch of smoke, grapefruit, banana-y yeast, bubblegum, alcohol, lemon, very Belgian-like

T TONS of bubblegum, apricot, spices, pineapple, piney hops, caramel malt, allspice

M A little bit creamy, medium bodied, and a bit of alcohol warmth

A Piney hop bitterness, sweet bubblegum

C This brew is truly twisted! I wasn’t sure what kind of beer I was drinking until I had a taste. This is a great example of a hybrid style - a cross between an American IPA and a Belgian style. They actually use Westmalle Trappist yeast to make it so crazy! It doesn’t sound appetising when I say it this way, but this is straight up bubblegum beer with hops. And for some reason, it’s delicious! I’d highly recommend trying the regular Little Sumpin’ Sumpin’ before this, and then trying the WILD. This beer lives up to it’s name in every way including the alcohol content. No taming here! It’s not even hidden. This baby is bold and unabashed. If you like trying different kinds of beer, this one is definitely worth a shot. Try Deschutes Foray IPA while you're at it.

FP Bratwurst with sauteed peppers and onions, rich chocolate cake, pork chops with an apple chutney

In my last post, I spoke a bit about date codes on bottles and cans. When I got this bottle of WILD, I had to do some research once more to figure out what all of these numbers mean.

Who would've thought there were so many ways to display a date on a bottle? There is even a petition going around that would require breweries to make date codes more uniform and understandable. Sign it if you wish! This particular date code refers to the day of the year the beer was bottled, according to the first three digits listed. That means this beer was bottled on the 255th day of the year, or September 12th. The fault in this style of coding is that it does not list the year, which can get confusing if you're trying to age your beer. That being said, I feel most of Lagunitas beer is best consumed fresh, so this wouldn't be much of a problem for their brewing style. I very much like the idea of a uniform date code, so sign that petition if you agree and have a moment. =)