{"id":300004,"date":"2025-10-13T13:24:18","date_gmt":"2025-10-13T13:24:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/300004\/"},"modified":"2025-10-13T13:24:18","modified_gmt":"2025-10-13T13:24:18","slug":"homebrew-summer-violet-san-diego-beer-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/300004\/","title":{"rendered":"Homebrew Summer: Violet – San Diego Beer News\u00ae"},"content":{"rendered":"

Each year, me and my friend and fellow Leo, Tom Nickel<\/strong> (pictured above, at right), use the fact our birthdays fall on consecutive days in August as an excuse to convene at his Julian brewery, Nickel Beer Co.<\/strong><\/a>, to brew a collaboration beer. Over the years, we\u2019ve brewed all manner of styles \u2013 IPAs of varying strengths, Belgian ales, a black barleywine. This time around, we knew we wanted to go the hoppy route, but didn\u2019t really have a game plan. Then came a monumental life event for my family, the passing of my dear grandmother, Violet Lyons<\/strong>. Allow me to digress.<\/p>\n

\"San<\/p>\n

Growing up the son of a single working mother, I spent the majority of my time with my grandmother. She played a major role in raising me, and I\u2019m so glad that she did. She provided great examples of love, determination, strength, loyalty and a work ethic, all of which I\u2019d like to think rubbed off on me. She had grit and gumption, but also affection and compassion, especially for her family. She always made me feel loved and accepted. I never felt less than or as if I didn\u2019t measure up when I was with her. She was a safe place to land and home to me for nearly a half-century. In short, she was, as my wife puts it, \u201cmy person\u201d. I owe so much to her and feel so blessed to have had the privilege of having her in my life for so long.<\/p>\n

Needless to say, it was tough losing her. I\u2019m still adjusting to her being gone and the fact she won\u2019t be around for special occasions, holidays or simply to call up and talk to. It\u2019s through the kindness and love of friends, family, and friends who are like family, that we get through times like this, and I have my friend Tom to thank for helping me memorialize my grandmother through our annual collaboration. It takes a special person to not only allow for the brewing of a purple-colored IPA (that they then have to sell commercially), but to then also do the lion\u2019s share of recipe formulation. But he never flinched. Instead, he agreed without hesitation, showing enthusiasm despite using ingredients he\u2019d never before utilized, even inviting my mother, Karen Lyons<\/strong>, to join us in the brewhouse on the collaboration day. The result is a beer both inspired by and named for my grandmother: Violet IPA<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

\"KarenKaren Lyons adds hops to Violet IPA<\/p>\n

A single-strength, 6.6% alcohol-by-volume West Coast IPA, it incorporates my two favorite hop varietals, Mosaic and Strata, as well as a varietal of Australian origin called Topaz. My grandmother\u2019s birthstone was blue topaz. She adored it and rarely left the house without at least one piece of jewelry featuring that sparkly pastel jewel. In this beer, the Topaz hops introduced vibrant tangerine-like notes, which meshed well with the tropical-fruit character of the Mosaic and the red-berry nuances of the Strata. It made for a very well-rounded IPA that just so happens to be purple. To achieve that coloring, we added butterfly pea flower powder. Since neither of us knew how much to add, we consulted the team at Vista\u2019s BattleMage Brewing<\/strong><\/a>, who utilized the exotic ingredient in a pro-am beer<\/strong><\/a> they produced during the very first Homebrew Summer<\/strong><\/a> back in 2021. With their help, we ended up with a shade a tad darker than violet and a slight earthiness that complemented versus overtook the hop-driven flavors of the beer.<\/p>\n

Thankfully, Violet IPA has sold well at Nickel Beer\u2019s tasting room, and some adventurous accounts have even ordered kegs. I had the honor of having a sixtel of the beer on tap during San Diego Beer News<\/strong><\/a>\u2019 five-year anniversary party at Bock Bar<\/strong><\/a> <\/strong>in South Park in August, as well. Now, thanks to Tom, who continued his streak of incredible kindness by taking the time to scale the beer recipe down to a five-gallon homebrew batch, I\u2019m pleased to share his how-to with readers. It\u2019s a fun beer I think you will enjoy, and for me, a meaningful tribute to my person.<\/p>\n

\"Nickel<\/p>\n

Nickel Beer Co. is located at 1485 Hollow Glen Road in Julian<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Each year, me and my friend and fellow Leo, Tom Nickel (pictured above, at right), use the fact…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":300005,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5134],"tags":[5229,7738,152717,116581,22127,1582,276,9416,2576,152718,152719,132420,132421,152720,152721,3549,7264,152722,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-300004","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-diego","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-beer","10":"tag-bock","11":"tag-brandon-hernandez","12":"tag-brewery","13":"tag-ca","14":"tag-california","15":"tag-collaboration","16":"tag-event","17":"tag-home-brew-mart","18":"tag-homebrew-summer","19":"tag-hops","20":"tag-ipa","21":"tag-julian","22":"tag-recipe","23":"tag-san-diego","24":"tag-sandiego","25":"tag-socal-brewing-supply","26":"tag-united-states","27":"tag-united-states-of-america","28":"tag-unitedstates","29":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","30":"tag-us","31":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115367082319201991","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/300004","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=300004"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/300004\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/300005"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=300004"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=300004"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=300004"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}