Your search for dank hops and a big double IPA could culminate with a bottle of Lagunitas' The Waldos’ Special Ale. (Fritz Hahn/TWP)
Marijuana folklorists trace the use of “420” as a code for pot smoking to a group of 1970s high school students in San Rafael, Calif., who regularly met at 4:20 p.m. to search for a rumored nearby patch of potent plants.
Every year, around April 20, Lagunitas honors the Waldos with their own beer: A dank, earthy, herbaceous monster of a triple IPA. There’s no way around this: It smells noticeably like weed, plus pine resin, mangoes and apricots. The body is full, sweet and sticky — “the stickiest of the icky,” you might say — and there’s a tidal wave of grapefruit and orangey hops before the warm, bitter finish. (This beer doesn’t even try to hide that the alcohol by volume is 11.9 percent.)
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Lagunitas is no stranger to marijuana-related beers: It once released a beer called Kronik (later renamed Censored after the government rejected the label), and its popular Undercover Investigation Shut-Down Ale refers to a 2005 incident in which the California Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control caught employees smoking pot at a brewery party and briefly suspended the brewery’s license.
So if you’re looking for a beer on April 20, or want to celebrate the “holiday” without smoking anything at all, you might want to hang out with a bottle of the Waldos.
Lagunitas The Waldos’ Special Ale. lagunitas.com. $14 for a six-pack of 12-ounce bottles.
Other beers that fit the 420 theme:
Burley Oak Head Stash: Named after the marijuana so good you keep it for yourself, this new double IPA will be released at the Berlin, Md., brewery on April 22.
Oskar Blues G’Knight: “Can’o bliss. Satisfy ya.” is on the label of this big, sticky, award-winning imperial red ale.
Sweetwater 420 Extra Pale Ale: One of Sweetwater’s early successes, this crushable, citrusy pale ale was named after its first brew date: April 20, 1997. Labels use the sign for the never-built Interstate 420 around Atlanta, but the slogan “Drink ’em if you got ’em!” gives the game away.