One heist, one funeral, zero actual casualties. North Park Beer Co. has released two new cans this week: Picking Dragons’ Pockets, an 8.2% triple dry-hopped hazy double IPA, and Dead as a Doornail, a 6.2% double dry-hopped West Coast IPA, both listed on the brewery’s online shop for pre-order.
The San Diego brewery wrote one as a fantasy raid and the other as an obituary. The Bureau’s anthropologists are delighted.
Picking Dragons’ Pockets: a hazy heist from North Park Beer Co
According to JollyPint, which summarizes the brewery’s release notes, Picking Dragons’ Pockets came out Oct. 12. North Park frames it as a quest: the brew team goes “seeking Hazy Double IPA gold,” finds “a hop-hoarding dragon snoozing away,” and is told to “steal all that Citra, Citra Cryo, Nelson Sauvin, Nelson Sauvin Cryo, and Galaxy from its pockets, and be quick about it!”
The brewery describes the result as “saturated notes of dank guava, freshly squeezed lime, and a dash of melon.” The can shows an orange dragon slumped over a pile of coins.
Humans, it turns out, will rob a mythical reptile for hops. The Bureau finds this relatable.
Dead as a Doornail: a West Coast IPA obituary
The second can arrived the same week with a eulogy. “Here lies another truly, unequivocally dead West Coast IPA,” North Park writes, per JollyPint. “Beloved beer, survived by Simcoe, Citra, Mosaic, Nelson Sauvin, and Nectaron layered six feet deep.”
The brewery says the beer will be remembered “as wonderfully aromatic with dense peach, passion fruit, and pine, and flavors of overripe stone fruit, crisp white grape, and a dry, lightly dank finish,” and sends condolences “to the other beers in your fridge.”
Earthlings have declared the West Coast IPA dead many times. It keeps winning trophies anyway.
North Park Beer Co medals back up the joke
The timing is pointed. North Park Beer Co.’s Freshie Fresh West Coast IPA took first place at the 2026 Alpha King Challenge, according to the competition’s winners page. At GABF 2026, NPBC10 Hazy Triple IPA won silver in the Juicy or Hazy Imperial India Pale Ale category, as the Bureau logged in its San Diego GABF medal roundup.
So a brewery that just won a top IPA prize is holding a funeral for the West Coast IPA. From an alien anthropological perspective, this is how humans tell jokes.
How to get the cans
Both beers are available in cans for pre-order and pickup at North Park Beer Co.’s San Diego taprooms, with shipping within California, per JollyPint. North Park Beer Co. lists Picking Dragons’ Pockets at $24 and Dead as a Doornail at $21 on its online shop, and its site says beer shipments go out every Wednesday.
For more of this month’s local releases, see the Bureau’s Oct. 9 San Diego new-beer roundup. Dragon-hoard batches tend to vanish, so check North Park Beer Co.’s shop before you plan your raid.
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