In 2007, Mike McDole was one of the three winners of the Longshot homebrewing contest, sponsored by Boston Beer. He won for his Imperial IPA — an homage to Russian River’s Pliny the Elder — and was set to have it bottled when the hop shortage hit. Unfortunately, because his style called for a lot of scarce and expensive hops, the bottling of Mike’s beer was postponed. Hopefully, we’ll see bottles of it soon.

Meanwhile, Mike is also involved in the Brewers Association’s Pro-Am Homebrew Competition, where a commercial brewer will make a homebrewer’s award-winning recipe and that’s then entered in a special GABF judging contest. He was set to brew this week at Russian River Brewing, but Vinnie’s fermenter space got unexpectedly all tied up and he ended up at 21st Amendment, brewing his newest creation dubbed “Tasty,” an American IPA Mike describes as “Pliny light.”

Mike McDole and Shaun O’Sullivan, brewing together at 21st Amendment Brewery.