Tag: IPA

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Featured PDX Beer Review – Dynamic Duo from Ex Novo

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All NBA season long, I have been treated to the duo of Lillard & McCollum scoring from everywhere. And Dynamic Duo from Ex Novo Brewing is the perfect beer to watch them play. The only question is whether Lillard is Citra and McCollum is Delta hops, or vice-versa.

The IIPA (proejct 007) pours a slightly hazy orange color. The aroma is quite imperial with a skosh of cat pee. There is some grape must notes here and a bit of tangerine citrus too in the flavor profile. This one is a cheek warmer for sure even at the mere 8% ABV. A bit dank and herbal at the end.

This is a strong beer with a great label plus it’s a not for profit brewery.

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Featured PDX Beer Review # 2 – IPA from Buoy Beer

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I had heard a tiny bit about the “other” Astoria brewery, Buoy Beer but had never had a beer from them before. But I think I should have purchased the 22oz bottle of pilsner before the IPA. I took a sip and immediately grabbed the bottle to look for a bottled on date which is never a good sign for an IPA. Even the most British and restrained of IPA’s have a hop kick somewhere but it was missing here. This beer was bottled Mid-January of this year so it shouldn’t have been this hop-less. There is citrus here in tiny amounts but the rest is some ESB-esque mix of flavors.

Maybe it was an “old” beer or mis-treated in transit but I will have to try fresh next time.

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Distorted Details

A while back I noted the future plans for a new IPA from Firestone Walker and now more details and a release date of March has been announced for Luponic Distortion
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Here are those details….”Luponic Distortion is not a single beer, but rather an ongoing series of beers that will evolve and revolve approximately every 90 days. It all kicks off with Revolution No. 001 in March.” Then do the math for when 002 will show up on tap.

“The base beer will remain the same with each new release, but the hop blend will change every time, so that no two releases will be exactly alike. As many as nine different hops will be included in each release, with up to six used in the dry hopping alone. However, with each release, the brewing team is going to turn up the volume a different featured experimental hop, which will be dry hopped in greater quantity than the others.”

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Hopslam has Hit

Cans of Hopslam from Bell’s have hit Los Angeles. Whale Hunters have donned their gear to buy what they can. And at least it has muted the Pliny fever for a bit which is a relief to me.
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Just make sure that you drink what you buy quickly…

I tasted the 2016 vintage at The Glendale Tap and found the sought after IPA to be fine but I kept searching for the piece of magic that has made it so talked about in the realm of magical IPA’s that has it ranked with Heady Topper and Pliny the Younger.

Maybe it is the fact that Hopslam has a definite honey sweetness and a heavier malt base to it that weighed the beer down to me. After the draught version, I opened a can and found it to be more honeyed but it tasted better to me. It was more sprightly and the hops came through a touch more.

HT and PtY though big beers have a lightness to them that I prefer in my IPA’s and though I find the hype surrounding them deafening at times, I can see how they have earned it. Hopslam doesn’t quite reach that crescendo for me.

Then again, I seem to be inoculated from hype.

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Float On

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I don’t think of hop bines when I picture South Africa but apparently Modern Times has and this month sees the 22ox bomber release of Floating World which features J-17 and Southern Passion hops from South Africa. Add those to fresh Citra hops and according to their newsletter e-mail it creates “an eruption of citrus, guava, and tropical flavors”.

They do need a name better than J-17 though.

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Featured Review – Centennial IPA from Founders

Founders showed up in L.A. last month and I have had a few of their beers on tap but this is my first bottled brew bought in California.
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Let’s see how they stack up in the tiny bit crowded IPA marketplace….

This is one of the darkest IPAs in recent memory. Very reddish/orange. My tastebuds are way to accustomed to extra West Coast bitters so I have to review with care because there is a definite hop difference. Mostly in amount. There is a tea like lightness here. The bitterness is there but not palate numbing. There is orange peel as well but overall this is not complex.

I am tilting more to lighter, sessionable IPAs that have more of a tropical kick and this has classic IPA written all over it so it is closer to my wheelhouse than bolder versions in the marketplace. I still prefer the Mosaic Promise from Founders more because it is more lively and less malt heavy.

Now I need to get some Backwoods Bastard.

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Featured Review – Handshake IPA from Green Flash

The final flash is based on a Handshake. Here is what I thought of the Green Flash / Alpine collaborative IPA…..
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The aroma kicks off with a blend of floral, grassy and fruit punch notes but then things turn as the flavor goes strong with pine and fir notes. Nice peppy bubbles speed the progress along but a bold hit of bitterness brings the proceedings to a halt. Pepper and a near mint bite wrap the flavor up.

There is a good complexity here that stops this IPA from getting too dank that shows a deft brewing hand.

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Go West

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Since, Fritz Maytag left the building the product line for Anchor Brewing has been slowly expanded and another IPA joins the group in both bottles and cans with the coming introduction of the dry hopped Go West! (not the band from the 80’s) Looks to join that citrus/tropical group of IPA which is more and more my preferred sub-style.

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Featured Review – Jolly Folly from Green Flash

Yes, it is past Christmas. And yes, it is also past New Year’s but one can be jolly and be involved in a folly later in January. So let’s get to reviewing Jolly Folly IPA from Green Flash Brewing of San Diego and Virgina Beach.

This “accidental” IPA pours a clear, bright orange with a big dank aroma with an underpinning of orange peel. The bitterness really hits the palate with this one and drys out really quickly. When cold, there is more of a fruit punch taste underneath. As it warms, that fruit note fades out and you are left with an orange pekoe tea with a touch of pine to it.
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Jolly Folly might just satisfy both the earthy hop lovers and the citrus hop lovers in equal measure.