While perusing the shelves of Portland’s excellent Beer Mongers store, I noticed a trend of citrus IPAs. Not just hops with citrus qualities but fruit infused IPAs.
So, for science, I bought three to unscientifically compare and contrast.
From past experience, I ranked the Lompoc first followed by Hop Valley and Coalition. But that is not the final ranking after each bottle was emptied.
Pamplemousse from Lompoc Brewing initially smelled great. Big grapefruit notes minus the pith which I find most commonly in citrus hop combos. But as it warmed, this beer started to lose that fruit vibrancy and settled into a nice IPA only.
Citrus Mistress from Hop Valley was full of the pith from first sip to last. But it was a little too one note for me. I guess I expected a variety of citrus and not just one flavor note.
My winner was Space Fruit from Coalition Brewing. The fruit was there both orange and lime to me along with a spice component that I didn’t line at first but really grew on me.
I think a mix of the last two would have really done the trick.
Now I need to find three SoCal fruit IPAs to test.