From Surrey, BC comes Central City’ Red Racer Imperial IPA 2014 (a serious 9% alc double IPA for charity, poured at home from a 22oz bottle). This is a 2000 case special release in 2014, they also did one last year.

Flavour: Lots of sweet bready malt and some almost hidden caramels, with a well balance dry grapefruity bitter finish with a bit of booziness to it that makes the finish just a little hot to remind you of it’s strength, but not in a bad way.

Overall Impression: I like this one for two reasons, first it has more than just bitterness and is nicely balanced against the fruits and sweet malt and second, $2 a bottle goes towards a funding a local university autism therapy program.

Rating: I would easily rate this as 8/10 for a craft beer as in excellent, it has a great price for what you get, a fairly cool looking bottle and is packed with lots of flavour. I will gladly pick up a few more of these and continue to support the cause year over year. They also are selling special glassware which I will try and hunt down soon.

Food Pairing: I paired it with habanaro pepper spicy salsa and chips, it was a great pairing and cut the spice down without losing flavour.

Extra notes from the brewer: “This year we are pleased to announce that Central City Brewers + Distillers is partnering with Simon Fraser University’s Faculty of Science to help fund a new clinical trial of HBOT (hyperbaric oxygen therapy) for children with Autism, the first of its kind in Canada. Research has shown that hyperbaric oxygen therapy can improve communications and behavior in children with Autism. Our goal is to raise $400,000 to make this trial happen.Thank you to Canada Malting (Malts), Metro Labels (Labels), and Tricorbraun (Bottles) who generously supported our 2014 production – without you this would not have been possible.” (http://centralcitybrewing.com/autism/)