Tag: IPA

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The Firkin for December 2014

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After years of bitterness, why are IPA’s the undisputed style king with the most entrants at the Great American Beer Festival and probably the most brewery best-sellers and flagship brews?

Will the IPA bubble burst?  Or will the popularity just keep skyrocketing?

My palate thinks not and for a few divergent reasons.

First the style is less a cul-de-sac and more a round-about.  IPA’s, the regular plain kind may very well be played out but into the breach steps Session IPA’s.  When that phase ends the Black or White IPA finds new life.  Then there are the Coffee IPA’s the fruit and spicy IPA’s.  The doubles and triples and Imperials.  Single Hop, Fresh Hop. The list goes on.  That’s not counting IPL’s (substituting lager for ale) or hoppy saisons.

So when Cascadian Dark’s become passé a new sub-style pops up.  Like a game of whack-a-mole.  And that leads me to my next reason why IPA’s seem never ending.

New hop varietals.  Citra begets Mosaic begets Mandarina begets New-Mexicanus.  The hop pipeline doesn’t appear in danger of running dry.  Once a hop becomes hip, it gets plugged into all of the above categories and the race is run anew.

The third reason behind the popularity is that the growth of craft beer keeps bringing new converts into the fold.  At a pace, I believe, that is much greater than current fans growing tired of hop bombs.  Now, I don’t have any concrete statistics on this but I buy less IPA’s each year but if the people jumping on the bandwagon (a good thing) are buying more then there is no chance for disenchantment to set in.  A backlash can’t form when the members of the backlash are always in a minority.

I will add a fourth idea to the mix as well.  Regional differences.  The IPA’s of Portland, Oregon are not similar to San Diego and San Diego is not similar to Fort Collins.  Let alone bridging the gap between East Coast vs. West Coast palates.  So, if one tires of Palate Wrecker, you have multiple others with different flavor profiles to choose from.

Does that mean that IPA’s will be king of the castle forever?  No.  Beer history is littered with the rise and fall of styles all over the world.  But it may take longer than most pundits believe.  Including myself.

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Review – Citrus IPA’s

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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.

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Sour in Name Only

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Before you tuck into the 2014 Christmas Ale from Anchor Brewing.  How about you test this intriguing beer experiment? They are tapping their distillery arm for their rye sour mash blending it with a regular mash recipe and they end up, “creating a unique piquancy.”

Thus they can have a tart but not sour base for their 7th Zymaster beer that they add the English Ale yeast to plus a mere four additions of the much loved Nelson Sauvin hop from New Zealand.

Can tartness and the grape qualities of the hop co-exist.  I will be trying it for sure.

 

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Review – Northern Hemisphere Harvest Wet Hop IPA

The name tells you all you need to know.  Which is why it is so long.  This is the 4th of a 5 beer series from Sierra Nevada.  This and the Wild Hop beer being the ones that caught my attention.

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What I liked about the Wet Hop is the simplicity of the ingredients:

  • Bittering Hops Wet Centennial
  • Finishing Hops Wet Cascade, Centennial

That is it.  And boy does it impart flavor.  This IPA is half danky earth and the other half is straight up Orange juice.  It really struck me at first the power of the flavors.  The aroma is reminiscent to me of orange juice that is sitting on the table with breakfast.  I know it sounds weird but that is what was triggered in my mind.

This is a super bitter beer too.  From first sip to aftertaste, there is a vegetal earthiness that just sticks to the palate and will not let go.  This from a beer that was bottled at the end of September.  I can’t imagine the IBU punch on a fresh bottle!  But as much as it is bitter that juice note doesn’t give up either.  I would probably call this a Double IPA taste wise even though the ABV is only at 6.7%

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Beer on Toast

Put that artisan bread baked with beer into the toaster but don’t put just any marmalade on it.

Not when you can slather IPA jelly on top. Or any of the other flavors like Porter, Black IPA or Oatmeal Stout from Nancy and Walter Warner’s preserves from their Potlicker Kitchen.

$7 will get you one jar and if you like it, you can buy sets. Breakfast just got beer-ier.

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Let’s Do the Numbers

After the multitude of helpful GABF statistics started being posted online, it got me to thinking about a personal pet peeve of mine. Why pilsners aren’t loved more.
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Using BeerAdvocate as a test case (that I will explore further, at a later date), German Pilseners 1-50 range from 4.04 out of 5.0 to 3.7
Czech Pilsener from 4.18 to 3.55

That’s a range of of .34 and .63 respectively.

Now look at these two, more loved styles:
American IPA 4.53 to 4.22 for the top 50
Double / Imperial Stouts 4.67 to 4.28

That’s a range of .31 and .39

Obviously IPAs and big stouts seem to be starting with an advantage because their higher ranking beers score higher than their Pilsner counterparts. But what strikes me is that the 50th best IPA and 50th best Imperial Stout are considered that much better than the absolute best Pilsener, from whatever country.

Now, I don’t expect a Pilsener to score 5 out of 5. But I can’t believe that the Top 10 in any category don’t track at the same levels.

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New Sessions in 2015

Looks like the Session stubbies from Full Sail are branching out for 2015. Currently there is the red labeled lager, alongside the other year-round Black lager. Then there will be a full-time Session IPA. Joining the Holiday Fest lager in the Session seasonals will be an Export lager and a second ale, Session Cream bringing the total ales to two and lagers to 4. All with distinctive colors to make for easy shopping. Of the coming arrivals the cream ale is the one that I would buy first. I prefer the less brewed styles obviously.

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Cedar Hop

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I am not fond of the beer name though I do like the bifurcated label and color scheme for this To Øl collaboration IPA.  But I am quite interested to see how the Mosaic hop, aged no less, works with the strong taste of cedar.  I am also intrigued by the new to me Siren Craft Brew from Berkshire,  England.

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IPA Taste Test – Stone Edition

Whilst wandering through my Trader Joe’s, I stopped at the “orphan” bottles and cans section of the beer aisle and I saw a “classic” Stone IPA right next to the newer Go To Session IPA. Immediately, I thought, it was time for a taste test. How did the two compare. Is there a stylistic shift or are they just variations on a theme?
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Classic IPA
Pours clear and fizzy orange. Compared to the Go To, it has less head to it. Pine/woodsy aroma and a strong punch of bitterness. There is some notes of citrus and fruit punch in there as well which fades as the beer warms and more of a spicy rye quality becomes more evident. A bit too astringent for me after a strong start.

Go To Session IPA
Pours a hazy yellow color. Oddly no “enjoy by” date on this bottle. Lighter tangerine aroma here. Much softer and a little more floral/ soapy notes here. Both have lingering hop presence to them. Just that this fades out quicker. A little watery as well.

Verdict – Neither have much malt presence to them. My preference for lighter hands on IPAs leads me to Go To but in the end the harshness of the Classic loses the battle more than Go To wins it.