My latest article for The Bulletin is out, and I revisit the topic of brut IPA with several new ones from Central Oregon breweries: Brut squad boasts new members.

In August, I wrote about a new beer style, brut IPA, introducing the champagne-inspired India pale ale variant characterized by high effervescence and dry body. At the time there were a few local breweries dabbling in the style, including Boneyard Beer and Sunriver Brewing Company. Since then, others have released their own versions, and three in particular are available now.

First, a quick refresher. “Brut” IPA is inspired by the dry and effervescent qualities of brut champagne, in which brewers aim to create highly carbonated IPAs with as little residual sugar as possible.

To that end, the traditional method of mashing the malt to convert the starches to fermentable sugars isn’t usually sufficient, so brewers often add amylase enzyme to the beer to further break down the remaining starches for the yeast to consume.

I profile Gated Community from Crux Fermentation Project, Killer Queen from Silver Moon Brewing, and Wild & Naked from Wild Ride Brewing (in collaboration with Naked Winery). In general, I found this latest batch of brut IPAs to be drier and more in line with what I would expect for the style than what I sampled last summer.