The Angel & The Sword (In cans on Tue. March 21st)

The Angel & the Sword  (Can release party on Tuesday, March 21st)  
Your friendly bartenders hear a lot of questions again and again. No doubt one that crops up the most often is “What’s the Angel and the Sword?” We pride ourselves on naming beers by their styles so you know what you’re getting, but this very special beer deserved a very special name. This celebration of great malts of the world is named after a statue in Toledo, Spain.


The statue depicts an angel holding a sword aloft in supplication. It’s often called the Angel of Peace. Toledo in the Middle Ages was known as a center for translation and publishing and was famous for the peaceful coexistence of Jews, Christians, and Muslims.


Our beer embraces the same spirit of cooperation, using some of our favorite malts from around the world.


So we’re known for brewing traditional, origin-specific beers, but our one-of-a-kind Angel and the Sword boldly uses the finest malted barley from a handful of great brewing regions. See if you can taste a little of Germany, England, and North America in this sophisticated celebration of malt, the heart and soul of your favorite beverage.


A base of ESB and Munich malts is enriched with a handful of secret specialty malts and judiciously hopped with two of England’s most traditional varieties, fuggles and East Kent goldings. We call it a malty amber ale, but you can think of it as a less hoppy more sessionable take on an ESB. Either way, a beer doesn’t need to fit neatly in some category to be great.


The taste of the Angel and the Sword is unparalleled and unique. It’s malt rich with caramel and bready overtones and nutty and toasty notes. There’s just enough of a woodsy English hop note to balance all that malt. At 4.6% alcohol and a modest 32 IBUs, it’s an eminently sessionable brew.


In a craft culture that sometimes competes to see who can fit more hops into a serving of beer, we wanted to offer a reminder that without malt, there’s no beer. America’s great inclusive beer culture welcomes every beer drinker and it has room for every style of beer and every brewing philosophy.


And like historical Toledo, the site of the statue that gives our beer its name, the Angel and the Sword is a celebration of unity and international cooperation. Now that’s something to drink to.