IPA Taste Off

Last Friday night I had three friends over for an IPA tasting. I feel that I am always looking for new beers, but wanted to see what would come out of a night tasting a bunch of personal "fall back" IPAs. The idea was simply to put a bunch of our "fall back" IPAs next to one another and see what the end results were. Everybody brought two IPAs each, and then we did a single beer all at the same time. I should start by saying that we weren't necessarily looking for a winner, just wanted to see our impressions of each beer. It turns out that most of us had similar thoughts on the beers, but it was interesting to drink 10 different IPAs next to one another.
Here's what was brought:
Lagunitas IPA, Great Lakes Commodore Perry, Bell's Two Hearted, Odell's IPA, Surly Furious, Deschutes Inversion,Town Hall's Masala Mama, Dark Horse Crooked Tree

Results? Well I should start by saying that none of these beers are bad, in fact they are all very good IPAs. What was interesting was how different from one another they were.
Overall the least impressive was the Deschutes Inversion. Very well balanced, and good, but didn't have an extra something that really separated some of the others, a solid B by most accounts. Laguintas was very solid, most people rated it around a B+, just clean and hoppy.

Bell's Two Hearted, my dark horse favorite, was very good, quite citrusy and lighter in body. We were surprised at how light in color it was compared to the others and how it was much crisper overall. It's not overly malty and the Centennial hops really stand out. Odell's surprised us a bit and was very well balanced and almost refreshing, clean bittering. Turned out better than I was expecting, I need to drink more of it. It's a beer I've had, but don't always turn to when wanting a good IPA, that's going to change.

As for the cream of the crop: Town Hall and Dark Horse were both outstanding, exceptionally balanced. The Dark Horse Crooked Tree really was well received, and everyone gave it an A. Malty, piney and citrusy as well, just fantastic. Masala Mama from Town Hall has a nice bite, lingering bitterness, and sweet mixture of maltiness and citrus you expect.
Great Lakes Commodore Perry was really the surprising IPA of the night. Amongst so much citrusy and piney IPAs, the Commodore Perry had a really interesting taste, almost berry like. It was very fruity in aroma and flavor.
Surly was the oddball of the night, but not in a bad way. After the first taste of the Furious everyone kind of took a step back. Stacked up next to these beers, it's more. More of everything, malt, aroma, and hop oomph. We decided that it really doesn't count in this tasting because it's just so different than the rest of the IPAs. For those who haven't drank a Furious, it's full of complex layers of malt, piney and citrusy hops, bitter and sweet, extremely aromatic. It's a great beer, but not really an IPA in comparison to the more classic American IPAs listed above.

After the eight beers listed above had been tasted, I broke out two beers I had in the fridge. One being Founder's Centennial IPA and a recently obtained bottle of Hop Art IPA from Coast Brewing in Charleston, South Carolina.

Founder's Centennial IPA is solid, dripping with citrusy sweetness. It's slightly malty but is over powered by the citrus. Centennial is as advertised, a great showcase of Centennial hops.

As for the Hop Art from Coast Brewing, I have been eager to try something from Coast for awhile. A small, husband and wife run brewery they try to brew with sustainable practices and organic ingredients as much as possible. For more information on Coast, I did an interview in 2008 with Jaime, one half of the brewery's operation.

Anyway, we cracked open the Hop Art last, and while we had all had a number of IPAs, all of us were really impressed. Perfectly balanced, the Hop Art poured Amber with aromas of citrus and slight pine, malty and sweet. Lingering sweetness with some slight bitterness. Throughout the night none of the IPAs possessed such a wonderful balance of all the qualities. So while we weren't looking for a winner, Hop Art really stood out amongst the rest. A special thanks to Brian @ Untamedbeer blog for sending me this gem.

My friend Jesse made a good point about the evening, we set out looking to just pick our "fall back" IPAs and we were able easily come up with eight that we'd be more than satisfied to walk out of a store with a six pack of. Overall, a great night. Brewing a beer with friends while drinking 10 great IPAs back to back.

More to come.
Salud!
Bearded Brewer