The cream soda of cream ales

When most brewers contemplate recipes for their beers, they envision Belgian abbeys, a rustic Germanic brewhaus, old English structures, or French farmhouses, calling to mind romantic notions of places where the world’s classic styles were forged as they attempt to expertly and honorably replicate those time-honored ales and lagers. In the case of Vista’s Mother Earth Brew Co., it seems that, in conceiving one of their more outlandish beers, the brewing powers that be conjured the mental picture of an old-time soda fountain or, perhaps, the A&W Root Beer factory.

Mother Earth Cali’ Creamin’ Vanilla Cream Ale comes across as an homage to cream soda with a flavor that almost perfectly mirrors that of the common fountain treat. It’s not some accident. This was the company’s mission when crafting a 5.2% alcohol-by-volume, vanilla-laced cream ale (given a slightly weightier mouth feel with flaked corn and honey malt) that would appeal to fans of that beverage while helping to increase craft beer’s fan base by converting the uninitiated with a widely appealing crossover brew.

Owner Dan Love and company’s plan worked to perfection. Though beer geeks focus mostly on Mother Earth’s broad selection of India pale ales — Kismet, Hop Diggity, Primordial, Big Mother — Cali’ Creamin’ is the workhorse of the company’s beer portfolio, and what has allowed it to grow at such a respectable clip over the past few years. A light-bodied cream soda beer with a dessert-like flavor profile running circles around big, bitter, hop-forward IPAs…who’d have thunk it? Especially in the hoppy beer capital of the world! No wonder it recently debuted as Mother Earth’s first canned beer. Look out A&W.