California: a beer flavoured with cannabis terpenes

Many stoners enjoy smoking a joint while sipping on a cold beer. What if they could combine the two? The Laguna Brewing Company, a California-based company headquartered in Petaluma that produces Lagunitas, came up with the idea of creating a cannabis-infused beer.

California has legalized recreational cannabis last year, with implementation set for January 2018, even though its medical use has been legal since 1996. Many businesses are flourishing in the cannabis industry and are using it more and more in beverages, from flavored water to soft drinks and, now, beer.

SuperCritical: a blend of hops and cannabis

https://www.instagram.com/p/BXyZJrFnrPx/?taken-by=lagunitasbeer

The hops used in beer production and hemp belong to the same plant family known as the Cannabaceae. This family includes more than 600 plants. Other companies have tried to produce beers that taste and smell like cannabis. However, SuperCritical is made with real cannabis terpenes. This beer is a blend of two varieties, namely the Blue Dream and the Girl Scout Cookies. However, this beer has an alcohol content of 6.81% and does not contain any THC, nor CBD unlike the IPA which we mentioned earlier. Only the effects of alcohol are felt.

Kial Long is the vice president of AbsoluteXtracts, a California-based vaporizer brand sponsored by the company CannaCraft. The latter supplied the terpenes needed to produce SuperCritical. He stated for the Washington Post : «This beer was created by combining about ten terpenes that are isolated and refined during the cannabis extraction process. That’s what gives our varieties their unique flavors and aromas.» Six different varieties of hops were also used to brew SuperCritical.

However, supplies of this beer are very limited, as the company produced only a single batch of 60 kegs, which were distributed to a few bars in the San Francisco Bay Area.

On the other hand, this could inspire French brewers to do the same—completely legally, given the absence of THC.

Mehdi Bautier