One For the Road: Mike Hunsaker's Last Beer at Fat Head's Brewery

Portland lost a brewer today. But we gained one last beer.

A little over two years ago, Chicago-born brewer Mike Hunsaker left the Midwest to become one of the finest brewers in Portland, at Ohio-born brewery Fat Head's. Within months, the outpost's tap list began to fill up with Hunsaker's local-hopped creations, including a Semper FiPA we blind-voted the best IPA in Portland city limits.

But Jan. 31 is his final day as a Portland brewer. He belongs to Camas now, in the unnamed state to the north that is so far away it takes 15 minutes to get there by car. He's starting a brewery there called Grains of Wrath.

Well, One for the Road is Hunsaker's final beer at Fat Head's. And as befits any beer meant to be drunk while driving to the suburbs of Vancouver, it is a double IPA clocking in at 8.5 percent ABV. Hunsaker apparently figured he'd use up all his hop contracts at once, and so it's a kitchen-sink brew with Aussie hop Vic Secret backed up by a laundry list of Simcoe, Mosaic, Citra and El Dorado.

It is a fine and fruity beer with a lot of mango on the nose and a fair amount of pine in the back to make it appropriately bittersweet.

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