Innovation is all around us, and there is so much innovation that goes into making great craft beer. Innovation can be the equipment at each brewery, or the hand-selected ingredients by the brewers, or those trendy new labels on each can. You find yourself wondering, how the heck did they do that, or what made them think of that? Doing a Google search for “beer patents” returns 603 patents just in the brewing process alone. If you keep digging down that rabbit hole, you will start to find other patents related to craft beer, items as genius as the Beerbrella. The beauty of craft beer, it will always innovate.

If you have not heard of Blackstack Brewing you might just be missing out on some craft beer innovation. After all, Minnesota is ranked the 11th most innovative state by Bloomberg. The team over in Saint Paul, MN decided to team up with The Bakken Museum to promote their Spark exhibit with a beer labeled Patent Pending. The theme of the exhibit and the beer is to showcase innovation and inspiration – the beer brings just that. Patent Pending is a 6.8% DDH IPA that uses experimental hop HBC 630 along with the innovative Cryo form of Ekuanot. If that wasn’t enough for you, they use their hand-selected Citra that Blackstack is known for to add some extra inspiration. Much like the label, innovation surrounds this beer.

Patent Pending has a fruity tropical smell with a slight candy taste that lingers on the tongue afterwards. This is one of the better DDH IPA I have had in some time. I wouldn’t hesitate picking up this beer if you see it on the shelves. For those outside of Minnesota who have never seen or heard of Blackstack, you should be able to find it on Tavour along with Wisconsin Distrubution starting this week.

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