A Gold Medal for Our Beloved Goose
In May, we were honored to learn that Pantless Thunder Goose - a staff & fan favorite double IPA - took home the Gold Medal in the Juicy or Hazy Imperial India Pale Ale category at the World Beer Cup. This recognition is deserved across the team, but most of all by our production crew. By our brewers, who use endless creativity, finesse, and patience to produce incredible beer, and by our packaging team, who make the challenging task of shepherding that beer out into the world safely, stably, and deliciously their daily mission.
When we tasted the first batch of Pantless Thunder Goose back in January 2019, we knew it was something special. The flavor profile married huge bursts of a candied tropical fruit with juicy and enticing stonefruit notes. While it clearly carried the intense depth of hoppy goodness that many similar hazy DIPAs do, the underlying body of the beer remained drinkable, with a touch of subtle bitterness to round out the flavor profile. We found ourselves going back for sip after sip, and loving what we found each time.
To round out the vision of the beer, we obviously needed a name as unique as the drinking experience. Our VP of Sales Kevin McGlynn pulled a little phrase out of the depths of a memory of a Reddit thread once read - just like that the Pantless Thunder Goose was born. Something about the name and the label that followed fit perfectly with the beer for us. Over the years, we saw numerous Mast Landing fans flock to the release days, and word came from afar of how much people loved finding the Goose on the shelves of their store.
The recipe for Pantless Thunder Goose features a melange of expressive hops. El Dorado and Mosaic are two of our favorite hops from the Pacific Northwest - both are commonly found in the boldest of double IPAs, and they contribute many of the tropical qualities that highlight the Thunder Goose’s flavor profile. Imagine candied papaya meets juicy, fresh pineapple. To round out the hop bill, we employ two hops from another hemisphere entirely: New Zealand Cascade and Kohatu. NZ Cascade has roots in the US and the long tradition of American-grown Cascade hops. Taking this varietal and growing it halfway across the world changes the flavor profile thanks to the soil conditions, adding a fruity dankness to the classic qualities of the hop.
This recipe is a great representation of the talent on our production team not only in its exquisite composition, but also in the iteration that brought us to where we are today. Earlier batches of Pantless Thunder Goose had similar but slightly tweaked hop makeups - while we loved those batches all the same, subtle adjustments to turn the beer from great to perfect were a showcase of our detail-oriented process. All together, it’s a recipe and journey that we’re quite proud of. We were thrilled to see it take home the Gold, and hope to continue sharing it with you for years to come.