Tag: IPA
Russian River Brewing Co. Blind Pig IPA
Russian River Brewing is perhaps the most interesting, split-personality brewing company in the country right now. On the one hand they brew their very successful “wild ales”, including Temptation, Sanctification, and Beatification. On the other are their just as very successful hoppy beers, namely Blind Pig and Pliny The Elder (and the seasonally produced Pliny The Younger).
The beers occupying these two poles are the ones that you most often hear about when Russian River comes up on the web or in discussions. But aside from these they also brew up some great Belgian-style beers, including the excellent Damnation, and a host of good-to-great one-offs and year-round beers. Basically, Russian River is brewing up a whole host of great beers, many of which you’ll need to go directly to the brewpub to sample, and some of which are available in limited distribution throughout the western states.
And so, sadly, I’ve only had a couple of opportunities in the past to taste Russian River’s brews. On a trip out to California several years ago we rounded up a few bottles of Temptation, Sanctification, and Damnation. And during our recent trip out west we went to their brewpub and did things right, sampling through that day’s entire lineup. It’s good there were 3 of us, since this worked out to about 20 samples!
Russian River had begun bottling Blind Pig and Pliny The Elder after our previous trips out west, and so tasting, and picking up a bottle or two, of those beers was high on my list of things to do during our recent trip. Since we’d been out west, my interest in IPAs had really blossomed, and so both of these beers stood near the top of the “must-try IPAs” list.
Shortly after our return trip home we opened up the Blind Pig IPA to give it a whirl. It seemed only right to sample this one before Pliny The Elder. Blind Pig rolls in at 6% from an original gravity of 1.060, with 72 IBUs loaded in there. A BU:GU ration of 1.2:1 – no fooling around here. This promised to be a very hoppy experience.
The beer pours golden amber, crystal clear, with a fluffy white head, that leaves a medium amount of lacing on the glass. Notes of grapefruit and citrus dominate the nose, accompanied by a a touch of sweet malt. But really, the opening salvo from Blind Pig speaks volumes about the amount of hops in the beer (and the likely amount of dry-hopping Russian River does with it). The palate is solid with plenty of body and prickly carbonation. Flavors of sweet malt kick off first, laying down a solid foundation. The hops come in waves after that, first lemon-lime citrus, followed by pine and resin. There is definitely loads of bitterness, but the effect is mellowed somewhat by the solid malt backbone. The palate is fairly dry with flavors of cotton candy malt and citrusy hops, with lots of lingering bitterness.
Blind Pig is not exactly balanced, but not too far from it either. The bitterness really comes in on the second half of the palate, but then doesn’t give up its stranglehold. Definitely a vehicle for hops. Given my expectations for Pliny The Elder really really bringing the hops, this was a good step into Russian River’s hoppy beers. I also have to admit that I’ve been enjoying maltier beers lately, and so the malt backbone in this one was very welcome. Overall, a great beer, and one to seek out the next time you head out west.
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Deschutes Brewing Co. Red Chair IPA
I’ve been homebrewing for a few years now, about a year less than the time I’ve spent getting to know the world of beer(s). At first I was operating pretty much in the dark, following recipes to the letter and figuring out how to conduct and understand each step in the brewing process. After a couple of years of homebrewing I’d reached a point where I felt pretty comfortable with the basics, enough to be able to formulate my own recipes and see how they’d turn out.
In particular, it was shortly after I began brewing IPAs that I really began to understand how the final beer in the glass was influenced by when you added hops during the brewing process. I began to understand the role of bittering hop additions (early in the process) versus late-hopping and dry-hopping. The different options you had for when to add the hops and which hops to use was totally exciting, especially for someone enamored with West-Coast style IPAs.
Eventually I hit upon an approach that I came to like a great deal: a primarily late-hopped IPA. By adding the large majority of the hops within the last 20 minutes of boiling the wort, and then dry-hopping in earnest, the result was an IPA that prominently featured the aroma and flavors of hops, without overwhelming the palate with bitterness. I’m all for a crazily bitter IPA here and there, but I really liked this style. Heavily hoppy, but very drinkable.
And so I was excited during our trip out west to get to try Deschutes’ Red Chair IPA, their latest addition to a series of hop-centric beers they call the Bond Street Series. All that I’d read about Red Chair left me with the impression that it was very similar to the style of IPA I had come to enjoy brewing so much on my own. The description on their site reads, “You will find no cloying, mouth puckering bitterness here. In its place a straight up succulent citrus punch to the nose…To say that the seemingly contradictory elements of caramel maltiness and citrusy hops get along would be an understatement; they coexist in blissful harmony.” Definitely a beer that I was excited to try as part of our somewhat beer-centric cross-country road trip.
Shortly after our arrival in Spokane we ran into Red Chair on tap at the spot we went to for dinner, and my expectations were fully realized. The beer was great, and went really well with the meal we had that evening. A couple of pints later I was convinced not only of how good the beer was, but also how much it did indeed resemble the beers I’d been brewing. So at some point while we were in Portland I picked up a bottle to bring home with us to taste later, long after we’d returned from our trip.
Red Chair IPA was first brewed this past Spring, and is available from Deschutes from May to September. It weighs in at 6.4% with 55 IBUs.
It pours amber with a slight chill haze, a fluffy white head, and lots of lacing. The nose has prominent notes of citrus and pine hops, with a little dry malt as well. But really, the nose is mostly hops. The palate has layers of citrus and herbal hop flavors, underscored by warmingly sweet caramel and bready malt flavors. There is very little bitterness, it really only shows at the edges of the palate, helping to make you conscious of the hoppiness but not overwhelming the beer’s balance. Instead, the hop flavor is really well integrated with the malty profile. The beer’s only real bitterness comes into play on the finish, with herbal and pine hop flavors and bitterness really dominating. The malt takes a backseat here, letting the hops take center-stage.
All things told, this is one yummy beer. Well-balanced, but in a way that really showcases the hops that went into it. Very drinkable, and very inspiring. I came away from trying this beer with a desire to try out a new variation of my late-hopped IPA – one that used some darker malts to beef up the beer’s maltiness and balance out the hops a bit more. Let’s face it, any IPA-loving homebrewer has to have an arsenal of hop recipes to call upon!
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Hopworks Urban Brewery IPA
Hopworks Urban Brewery was the first stop during the one day that we had to spend in Portland, Oregon during our recent cross-country adventure. In preparation for our stop in Portland I had spent time reading blogs about the beer in Portland (Brewpublic is a great one, BTW), following discussions on Beeradvocate, and recalling parts of our previous stay in Portland the year before. All in all, what it came down to was that picking just a few beer-related destinations in Portland was going to be a very, very hard task.
But among the many destinations that drew our attention, Hopworks stood out. Not only did they produce beer with a stellar reputation, but they were leading a trend towards more eco-friendly brewing, and their food had a good reputation as well. So we could hit them up as our first stop, and know that both good beer and good food would be on the menu.
Hopworks is a fairly new brewery, having opened in March of 2008. Since then they’ve earned increasing attention for both their beers and their approach to building a sustainable brewery. They call themselves “Portland’s first Eco-Brewpub”. All of their beers are produced organically, and much of the food that is served in their brewpub uses local and/or organic ingredients.
They’re small, producing about 3000 barrels per year, but turn out a number of beers including a lineup of 6 standard offerings and several seasonal or one-off batches. When we were there they had 12 beers in total on tap, two of which were on cask. Included in the sampler we got were the 6 regulars, a kolsch, a lager, and their Deluxe Organic Ale aged in bourbon barrels. The last was part of their single-barrel series that had been announced just shortly before our arrival, where they are kegging individual casks of barrel-aged beers.
The one thing that stood out as we tasted our way through the sampler was how clear-tasting all of the beers were. Each beer had a distinct and clear set of flavors that really stood out so that each was entirely unique relative to the others. All of them were quite good, and a few, such as the IPA, DOA, and barrel-aged DOA, were very good. In fact, the barrel-aged DOA was really quite remarkable, and warranted an extra glass after the sampler had run its course.
And so we thoroughly enjoyed our long lunch at Hopworks, as we recovered from the relatively brief (4-hours) drive down from La Conner, WA. We had a beer or two, some good sandwiches, and shot a couple of games of pool afterwards. A great time, all things told!
As a memento of our stop we picked up a 22-oz. bottle of their IPA to bring home with us. Hopworks doesn’t have a bottling line of their own, but is was one of the several breweries in the Portland area who contract with Green Bottling to bottle their beers once in a while. I love Green Bottling’s business concept, where they come to your brewery with their mobile bottling line and bottle your beer for you. I’d love to see something like this pop up for the handful of New England brewpubs that don’t bottle their own beer (Cambridge Brewing Company!). The existence and success of such a company is proof to me, yet again, of how incredible a beer culture Portland, Oregon has.
As for Hopworks IPA, it is brewed using Canadian pilsner malt, German Munich and Caramunich malts. The hops include Amarillo, Centennial, and Cascade, the last two classic northwest-IPA hops. The beer is brewed to an original gravity of 1.061 (15 Plato), with 75 IBUs and finishes at 6.6%. Head brewer and founder Christian Ettinger was recently quoted as saying, “It’s a very dynamic beer, but it’s not very bitter. The little bit of malt helps mask some of that bitterness, and allows us to add more hops.”
The IPA pours a slightly hazy, coppery gold, with a striking white head that leaves a thin film on top of the beer. The nose has pine, douglas fir, and citrus hop aromas, and smells like your hands do after rubbing fresh hops between your palms. Along with the hop aromas there is some sweet and bready malt kicking around. The palate opens up with resin and piney hop flavors surrounding your palate and laying down a layer of bitterness. Citrus hop flavors follow this, rounding out the hop profile. The “little bit of malt” is very subdued and plays a distant second fiddle to the hops, most notable in the rounding sweetness it provides. All told, the palate is all about hops, and the malt really does just help to soften their blow. Bitter, but not overwhelmingly. The finish is all hops, with pine resin and bitterness rolling along.
This is a classic northwestern IPA. If you like hoppy IPAs then this is one for you, and (another) one of the reasons that you should move to someplace like Portland where IPAs like this are not as rare as they are out here. There is enough of a malt backbone and structure to keep the beer interesting, while allowing it to achieve its chief goal of delivering loads of hops to your palate.
Hopworks was one of our favorite beer-destinations on the trip, and for good reason. Not only were the beers all excellent, as this one demonstrates (even now, several weeks after our stop), but the brewery just had such a fun character, with the eco-brewing practices, the nice people, and the great space – with old bike frames and seats used as decorations around the brewpub. Even their bottles are pretty awesome, with a graphic of a bike-chain running vertically down the bottle with the phrase “Ride your bike” underneath it. If you ever have the chance, definitely check this place out.
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Samuel Adams LongShot Double IPA
Each year Sam Adams holds the LongShot homebrew contest, where homebrewers can send in samples of their beer, and the three winners that are selected have their beer brewed by Sam Adams and included in the next year’s LongShot 6-pack. It’s sort of like a homebrewer’s dream, to have your own beer brewed by a real brewer and distributed nationally.
So it must have been a bit of a letdown for Mike McDole, the homebrewer who initially created this Double IPA, when he won the contest in 2007. When Sam Adams went out to buy the ingredients for brewing this beer for 2008′s LongShot 6-pack they discovered that as a result of the global hop shortage that was taking place, most of the seven varieties of hops the beer called for were sold out. In response they offered two options to McDole, to either brew the beer using different hop varieties or to wait until the next year when they would be able to secure the hops they needed. McDole chose to wait, and the result is that his beer showed up in the LongShot 6-pack this Spring. More info about the story here.
The word was that this was a pretty darn good beer, and all on its own was a good reason to buy the LongShot 6-pack. So en route to a barbecue earlier this summer I picked up a 6-pack to give it a whirl.
The beer rolls in at 9%. It pours a hazy, amber orange, with a fluffy white head that leaves lots of lacing all the way down the glass. The nose is rich with hop resins and spices, underscored by a strong malt undercurrent, alongside a hint of blood oranges. The palate has lots of thick, sweet malt, substantial hop bitterness with hop resins and spices kicking your tastebuds all over the place. There are also sugared, deeply sweet citrus flavors of lemon and orange. The beer is fairly heavy-textured, with the malt really bringing a velvety thickness. The finish is warm with malt, hop spices, and lingering bitterness.
This is a big double IPA that really emphasizes spicy, resiny hops and supports them with a big, malty body. Not my preferred style of IPA, but really quite good, and it worked pretty darn well at a warm summer barbecue.
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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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