Italian Style Pilsner, Cold-Fermented IPA, Berliner Weisse…and a DIPA for good measure

We spent the last year heads down in R+D experimenting with new styles and finding the sweet spot that makes a beer both interesting and easy-to-love. The reward — four brand new Fort Point beers are now joining our can line-up. Is this a big deal? Yes! It’s kind of huge for the team and me, we haven’t released a new can for nearly two years.

Our approach to our can lineup has always been “less is more” — not because we aren’t interested in other styles, but because at Fort Point, getting canned is the highest honor a beer can receive. The beers that make it into cans are the ones we’ve labored over, fine-tuned, and tinkered with the most to make sure they’re just right.

While these four new beers are pretty far apart stylistically, our hope is that together they showcase flavors and styles that not only complement our original line-up, but also demonstrate our growth as brewers. Without further ado, here are the newest members of the Fort Point family!

Sfizio — Italian Style Pilsner

Sfizio is an Italian Style Pilsner and is a relatively new style in the American craft beer world. It’s a little confusing, as it isn’t based on those green bottled beers like Peroni or Birra Moretti. Instead, this beer is inspired by an extra hoppy pilsner called Tipopils that’s brewed by small craft brewery Birrifico Italiano. Sfizio is a dry-hopped German pilsner that features the grassy and herbaceous Noble hop varieties that traditionally play more of a background role in Italian Style Pilsners. What I love about this style is that it brings the hop aroma intensity of IPA to a lighter, spritzy, more elegant base beer. For those that are familiar with our beers, Sfizio is most similar to KSA and Park, but with a whole new range of hop flavor and effervescence.

Cool — Cold Fermented India Pale Ale

Cool is a Cold Fermented IPA with a vibrant citrus aroma and shockingly clean finish. In a way, it bridges the gap between session beers and IPA. This beer came about entirely through curiosity. We asked, “What would happen if we fermented a neutral ale yeast strain at lower than normal temperatures?” We discovered that cold fermentation concentrates the hop aroma, while also imparting a delightfully smooth finish. The bitterness and aftertaste just disappeared, inviting sip after sip. Our goal with Cool was to make an IPA that’s as drinkable as it is distinctive while hopefully making this familiar style feel new again.

Strawberry Darling — Berliner Weisse with Strawberries

Strawberry Darling is a mildly sour Berliner Weisse with strawberries, peaches, and plums. Darling is another big first for us — our first canned sour beer and first fruit beer. I’ve thought for a long time whether and how sour beer fits into Fort Point’s brewing philosophy. It’s a style that’s known for excess, and Fort Point beer is all about restraint. Berliner Weisse is a great introduction to sour beer because of its low ABV and mild sourness. Working in that framework, we added a combination of fruit that tempers the sourness but is still expressive and fun, while nodding to the German tradition of sweetening Berliner Weisse to taste with fruit flavored syrups.

Dipper — Double India Pale Ale

Dipper is a big, juicy Double IPA that leans heavily into a mango and strawberry hop flavor profile. Most of our beers tend to be on the lower end of ABV, so our brewing team was excited to tackle the challenge of brewing a Double IPA. It’s difficult to get stronger beers just right, but we were extra diligent about recipe formulation and creating a healthy, vigorous fermentation so that the flavor, alcohol, and body of the beer are working together in balance. The team definitely succeeded, and the result is a richly flavored IPA with a smooth texture that punches above its weight.

In a year that’s been rough for most of us, it’s nice to have something to look forward to. While the future is still uncertain, we’re happy and proud to share something new. We had a lot of fun working on these beers, and we hope you have just as much fun drinking them. If you see them around town, give them a try and let us know what you think — we’d love to hear from you.

Sign up to hear about our latest beer releases, blog posts, and more