Lucid Brewing - Dyno

On the pour, this pale ale offers a brilliant golden color with good clarity and a tight crop of foam that will drop some lace as it recedes. Brewed with all US hops, expect a very American aroma profile with plenty of citric, floral, and piney hop notes overlaying light caramel and bready malts. Look for the flavor to follow suit pretty closely. The malts offer up a lightly toasty and mildly caramelized core along with a touch of sweetness, but the hops are not shy, with judicious use of two super-alpha (very bitter) hop varieties, Bravo and Super Galena, ensuring Dyno dries out nicely by the finish. Cascade, the posterchild of Pacific Northwest hops (and America hops in general), also lends its luscious floral and citric notes. Flavorful, moderately bitter, and easy going down, Dyno makes a great anytime beer. For a pairing, try it with grilled tarragon chicken or lemon-and-herb-crusted fish. Cheers!

Lucid Brewing was founded by Jon Messier and Eric Biermann (when you've got a name like that...) in the Minneapolis suburb of Minnetonka, MN. Highly experienced home brewers with over a decade of experience, both men had brought home medals from various state fairs and beer competitions. But, while brewing may have been their passion, it remained just a hobby as they toiled their lives away under the repetition of corporate jobs filled with meetings, deadlines, long hours, and more meetings. Eventually, though, while enjoying one of the precious moments of clarity that we all can relate to late in the evening and away from the rat race, the need for a permanent break from the routine was realized. It was time for the duo to go pro, and their brewery's name would reflect that moment of clear thinking.

After about a year of planning and preparations, Jon and Eric, with the support of their very understanding wives, left their jobs in June of 2011 and began building their brewery. In addition to their main brewing system, a successful KickStarter campaign raised over $10,000 that the duo put toward equipment specifically for other home brewers to use and train with, turning Lucid into "a place where pro and amateur brewers can openly interact and collaborate on limited release batches of beer."

During construction of the brewery, their first beer – a light, thirst-quenching ale called "Air" – was brewed during that summer as a refreshment for the workers. By October, brewing operations were underway in earnest, with the first kegs rolling out to their draft accounts in Jon's personal car. What a difference three years of hard work can make; since their opening in 2011, Lucid has gone from three draft accounts to several hundred, and refrigerated trucks are the go-to delivery vehicles. The brewery offers three year-round brews in addition to at least seven seasonal and limited production beers. For more info, visit them at www.lucidbrewing.com.