Lagunitas Hop Stoopid Ale
Lagunitas ranks right up there with those breweries in the U.S. brewing beers that push the very boundaries of hops and IBUs. Their Maximus IPA is a fabulous beer, intensely packed with west-coast style hops – citrus, pine, and resin busting out of the glass, accompanied by a sturdy, yet dry malt backbone. A classic of the style!
And so when I first tried their Hop Stoopid Ale about a year ago I was floored. I hadn’t tasted a beer with this kind of hoppiness to it. A massively hoppy nose, vibrantly hoppy palate, and a sweet-enough malt body to give the beer some real heft.
Ok, that’s not so rare. But it was the character of the hoppy palate that really blew me away. While being amazingly hoppy, it wasn’t too bitter at all. Tons of hop flavors, but expressed in a smooth, easy-drinking style. It was though they had simply managed to leave behind much of the bitterness, keeping the the best, most flavorful hop components.
I was inspired! I turned my attention to brewing a beer of this style and learned how to use hops late in the boil to capture their flavor and aromas without incorporating their bittering elements. The result was my favorite home-brewed IPA yet, lots and lots of citrus and floral hop flavor. But still, it wasn’t quite the same. Enough bitterness carried over to really give your palate a kick or two, and while the beer was really good, it ended up being a bit more rough around the edges than its inspiration, Hop Stoopid Ale.
More research turned up the fact that Lagunitas used hop extracts to brew this beer. Essentially, hop extracts are produced by dissolving the hops’ resin components in liquid, which the brewer uses in place of whole hops. Theoretically, more “pure” hop components are added to the beer this way, and without the need to store hops, or separate them from the beer after brewing.
Extracts are most often used by larger breweries, and are generally not given much attention by the craft brewing scene (at least, not out loud). Lagunitas indicates so much on the Hop Stoopid label:
“Clean this mess up or we’ll all end up in jail…hop extracts are for the BIG breewers…suitable only for crummy sub-standard and barely-passable industrial lagers, not the subtle and elegant craft beer made here.”
Yet, for a brewer aiming to make a hugely hoppy double IPA, hop extracts could make a certain sense, enabling them to introduce specific hop components and exclude others, while saving the mess and hassle of pounds and pounds of whole hop leaves.
Now that I knew the “secret”, the beer promptly disappeared. I’d had it on tap locally, and never again saw it in bottles. I asked around, prowled the internets, all to no avail. Until this year’s Extreme Beer Fest, where the Lagunitas booth was serving up the elusive Hop Stoopid Ale!
The folks at the booth told me that not only was Hop Stoopid going to be coming out in bottles in Mass. shortly, but that it was going to be replacing the Maximus IPA as their year-round 22oz. IPA (and the Maximus was going to be replacing the regular IPA as their year-round 6-pack IPA).
This beer weighs in at an original gravity of 1.085, with 102 IBUs and 7.7%.
The color of the beer is burnished gold with a pillowy white head of foam that leaves copious sticky lacing along the glass. The nose is all hops, remarkably vivid. Amazing pine and resin hop aromas explode out of the glass, practically filling the room. Hints of citrusy hops stick their nose into the mix, alongside a very slight undercurrent of sweet malt. This is far and away one of the most vividly hoppy noses I’ve found in a beer. The palate strikes with a notable hop bitterness that quickly gives way to mouth-filling citrus, pine, and resin hop flavors, leaving very little bitterness behind. A strong malt backbone lends sweet caramel and biscuit flavors and a slightly syrupy texture. As the beer warms the alcohol becomes more prominent, thickening the texture. In fact, without much hop bitterness to go around, the thick texture stands out all the more. The finish begins with caramel sweetness that slowly trails off into the distance, accompanied by citrus hop flavors and wrapping up with a sting of hop bitterness.
As with most things remembered, this beer did not quite measure up to my memories and expectations. That being said, it’s a great and complex tasting beer. It carries a punch, because of the high alcohol and low realized bitterness, but is a must try for any fan of hoppy beers. And it makes for a great one-two punch alongside their fabulous Maximus IPA.
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Man I love the Hop Stoopid. From personal experience, my palate varies day to day as far as how much hop character I perceive. One day I’ll be knocking down a green flash IPA like its a sierra nevada pale, the next day it tastes like a real IPA. Maybe the beer’s more similar than your memory has it…