One of the downsides of organizing a huge, nationwide blind-tasting of a classic beer style such as pale ale is that there’s no perfect time of the year to host it. No matter when we chose to host what turned into an 83-pale-ale jamboree, there would inevitably be some great beers left out. Even beers that are produced year-round aren’t immune to this—get unlucky and catch a brewery between batches, and they simply aren’t able to participate. Other times, production hits a snag or is somehow delayed, and the beers eventually do arrive at the Paste office … too late to participate.
That’s what happened with 18th Street’s Jade, a beer that I’ve heard a fair bit about and was recommended by a few of our readers of the main beer subreddit, r/beer. Perhaps being late was good fortune, though—now they’ve got a standalone review out of the deal.
You may have heard about 18th Street in the last few years. Situated in the rather unlikely craft beer burg of Gary, Indiana, they’ve been making waves and have slowly become one of those “IT” breweries that people make a point out of bringing to bottle shares and similar beer geek peacocking functions. People speak particularly highly of their sours and barrel-aged offerings—I can’t speak too strongly to that, but their barrel-aged Devil’s Spear Barleywine did perform extremely well in our recent blind barleywine tasting, and I can verify it’s damn good stuff. It’s a brewery that was born out of collaboration with two of my other favorite Chicago-area beer makers, Pipeworks and Spiteful, so I’ve certainly had my eye on them for a while.
Jade, though, isn’t some big barrel-aged monster. It’s is a classical American pale ale in construction, but with a twist: It specifically features Pacific Jade hops. They’re a New Zealand style I’ve had as part of blends in various “southern hemisphere” pale ales and IPAs, but I don’t believe I’ve ever had a single-hop Pacific Jade beer before this.