My 10 IPAs of the year

I wish I were special, but I'm not: IPA is, all in all, probably my favourite beer style.  This love is relatively new. The first IPA that really turned me on was Anderson Valley's Hop 'Ottin — which I drank in October of 2009. Immediately afterwards Driftwood released their first batch of Sartori Harvest IPA, BC Liquor stores started selling Dogfish 60 minute, and I was hooked. Up until then I'd take a stout or a tripel over an IPA any day.

I've had countless IPAs since, including doubles, triples, imperials, wet-hopped, belgian, etc etc. The downside is I'm not really sure what an IPA is any more, but I know when I've got a good one. Here are some of the highlights of my year of IPA lust. I've no doubt omitted some I liked more than these, but these ones stand out as I type this post.

#10 Black Oak - Ten Bitter Years
The enjoyment I got from this one might be due to a convergence of factors, including stumbling across Chancey Smith's in London, meeting barman extraordinaire Milos Kral, and finally getting a drink after a brutal flight schedule. Ten Bitter Years is Black Oak's 10th anniversary beer, brewed to the discerning tastes of BO president Ken Woods. The one I tried had been aged a few months, and was bursting with mellow apricots and lavender. There is a really complicated hop character to this beer: rich but not overpowering. This is a sipper and should be nurtured until warm in the hand.

#9 Phillips - Hop Circle IPA

Legend has it that Matt Phillips dumped a case of Central City's Red Racer on the boardroom table and informed his skilled staff that "this is the one we have to beat." Sooo close, but not quite. This is an excellent IPA nonetheless, and probably my favourite Phillips beer along with the Skookum. I was lucky enough to try it fresh at the brewery as it was released, and the powerful melony-hops and an intoxicating blast of marijuana this beer delivers left a lasting impression on me.

#8 Avery - Maharaja Imperial IPA
Avery brews "big artful beers" and this 10% brute is as big as they come. A dirty, almost filthy, orange colour, with a slug of tangerine hops and an estery smell that really works. This isn't a zingy, fresh IPA — but one of those sweetish, heavy ones that really wallows in the mouth. Intensely aromatic and excoriating, very recommended.

#7 Anderson Valley - 20th Anniversary Imperial IPA

After their Hop 'Ottin, I knew this would be a good one, and it really delivered. As powerful as the Maharaja, but in a completely different direction. This one bursts with citrus fruit, vanilla and grape juice. Very lightly carbonated but thick — the way imperial IPAs should be. The hops do not dominate the flavour, making this less of a hop bomb and more of a comforter.

#6 Driftwood - Sartori Harvest IPA 2009
This beer really sold me on wet-hopped IPAs, and I have been trying (unsuccessfully) to replicate this experience ever since. The balance of pine and orange was exceptional in this release, but what really got me was a near-medicinal camphor zing that made it the most mysterious IPA I've ever had.

#5 Paddock Wood - Loki

I was in two minds whether to put this or Dogfish Head's 90 minute IPA in this spot, as for me, they both represent the same kind of strong IPA. Neither is a slave to its hops, but brings huge complexities in malt flavours — something many IPAs overlook. The Loki tasted like raisins, rice pudding and pepper, but cut through with just the right amount of grapefruit hops to satisfy the IPA lust. A very underrated beer, this one, and a label to die for.

#4 Central City - Red Racer
Enough has been said about this beer already. It is currently BC's finest IPA, and it is deservedly hyped-to-all-hell on beer review sites. At the Great Canadian Beer Festival I tried a casked imperial version which was also sublime, but nothing really beats the tropical gorgeousness of regular Red Racer. A great beer.

#3 Moylans - Hopsickle

First time I had this I thought "ok, enough is enough." This is one of those relentlessly hoppy IPAs that prompted Garrett Oliver of Brooklyn Brewery to quip: “It’s a fairly idiotic pursuit, like a chef saying, ‘This is the saltiest dish.’ Anyone can toss hops in a pot, but can you make it beautiful?” Well, after 4-5 bottles of this stuff, I truly believe it IS beautiful. The "hop-bomb" dismissal slung around by the IPA-backlash brigade is a reverse snobbery that detracts from how damn good some of these hop-heavy beers really are. Hopsickle is a distillation of hops, which, curiously, shares an almost identical flavour profile to Brew Dog's oneupmanship vessel Sink the Bismark (the 41% IPA to end all IPAs). Drink this beer last. (I used FrothyHead's image because, well,  it's way cooler than my picture)

#2 Southern Tier - Unearthly Imperial IPA
This beer leaves me giddy. At 11%, that's hardly surprising. Unearthly is a devastatingly hoppy beer, but in that deep, stewed grapefruit kind of way that makes a beer truly sexy. Pretty sweet, thick, and soupy. Loads of herbal, peppery stuff is going on in this beer. I recently tried the Oak-Aged and it's a distraction — the original is much better. This beer should be served after an hour out of the fridge and allowed to warm fully before you finish it. A lesson in hops.

#1 Pelican Brewpub - India Pelican Ale
It isn't imperial, particularly hoppy, rare, or distinguished in any way other than being the most perfectly balanced IPA I have enjoyed to date. This beer is like listening to a well recorded band on some expensive hi-fi equipment: every element of it is clearly discernable and accessible to the taste. The beer has an intensely bready aroma, with equal measures of pine and citrus hops. The taste has an almost soap-like mineral backbone to it that I think is what allows all the other flavours to express themselves so clearly. There is mildly warm sweetness, a very substantial bitterness, and a little spice — all three of which fade at the same rate through the aftertaste, leaving a tiny trace of salt that has you reaching immediately for another sip, another glass, another bottle, and another trip to the bank to get the $9 you need to buy one here in Victoria. Dammit.

Honourable Mentions

Ballast Point - Big Eye IPA

Green Flash - Imperial IPA

Driftwood - Big Tug IPA

New Belgium - Ranger IPA

Anderson Valley - Hop 'Ottin IPA

Duggan - #9 IPA

Dogfish Head - 90min IPA

Stone - Ruination IPA
Moylans - Moylander Double IPA
Edit: Phillips - Nine Donkeys of the Hopocalypse

Review: Southern Tier Heavy Weizen and Lighthouse Shipwrecked Triple IPA

These two beers have nothing in common, but Dave from beerinbc.com and I independently tried them both this week and chatted about them a bit — so they get a dual post. 

Southern Tier Heavy Weizen

Ever since Unearthly Imperial IPA I get pretty excited about each Southern Tier beer I get to try. The Unearthly is one of my IPA benchmarks — such a rich and chewy beer. Their Oat imperial oat stout, Hoppe, and Iniquity (a cascadian dark grandaddy) are all sublime too. Great NY brewery.

Naturally I was excited about this beer. The only other "imperial" hefeweizen I can get regularly is Howe Sound's sublime King Heffy (7% to Heavy's 8%). I like it so much that if I am ever in a BC liquor store and I see someone who cannot make up their mind what to buy, I force them to buy this beer. It's a high bar.

This is probably the fastest I have ever drunk a bomber of imperial anything. The Heavy Weizen's (maybe that's supposed to be one word...) strongest point is its smoothness. It goes down like a vanilla and banana milkshake, and finishes with such a perfect balance it's as if it was never there. Problem is, the King Heffy is very spicy and effervescent and heady and alive. That's a much better kind of hefeweizen. The Southern Tier one is remarkably drinkable, but pretty tame and forgettable. Dave really didn't like it. 

Verdict

Me: Worth a drink just for the scarcity of this style, but I won't be buying another when the Heffy is available. 

Dave: "I wish I had king heffy instead of this shit"

Lighthouse Shipwrecked Triple IPA

When is a beer a double? That's a tricky question. I know that it is an imperial when one bottle makes me want to fight. But a triple? I don't get it. Let's see if their website helps: "Shipwrecked Triple IPA is a strong beer brewed in small batches using twice the regular kettle time, double the Pale Malt and triple the hops of a regular IPA." So mostly it has double ingredients, but triple the hops of whatever a "regular" IPA is (their Beacon IPA, I presume, which is reasonably hopped but not as much as many other west-coast style IPAs). 

This beer looks like Lucozade — the British energy drink that, I've just found out on wikipedia to my astonishment, is actually 0.1% ethanol. Shipwrecked weighs in at a more substantial 10%, so I would expect it to give me lots of energy indeed. 

The aroma off this beer is a briney-piney hop blast. Got a weird seaweedy smell to it, but I might be being influenced by the label. Really solid slug of orangey hops too. Good and interesting so far. Lighthouse are a local outfit and most of their beers are, to put it blunt, pretty run-of-the-mill, so it's exciting and out of character to see them bringing out a massive IPA. 

I didn't dig the initial taste too much at all. It has a coppery, rust flavour to it. The carbonation is quite high and it accentuates the metallic edge. Tons of booze too. But the aftertaste is pretty good. It tastes somewhere between clotted cream and butterscotch. After a good half of the bottle, sipped slowly, the beer warmed up and I stopped wincing at the initial flavour. By the end I was pretty pleased with it. 

Verdict

Me: A flawed but ultimately quite enjoyable imperial IPA. Too many other strong contenders available to make it a regular buy for me.

Dave: "must be drank cold" <- completely contrary to my impression. 

Right, I promised myself a bottle of Driftwood's new Fat Tug IPA after I wrote this. It is time. Bye. 

Southern Tier Wallpapers

Southern Tier have made high-resolution copies of their attractive beer bottle labels available for download. Just click the thumbnail next to each beer description for a 3563*3038 image — big enough for any monitor.

I have a smaller neck label image on my laptop. The Oat and Oak-aged Unearthly are pretty to look at. If any readers have links to hi-def beer artwork, post them in the comments.


Splash beer on your computer without shrieking.

My Second Marriage

Easter Weekend at the in-laws' in Vancouver is a wonderful occasion.

Sure, we spent three hours on a ferry in a 45 knot gale, during which my sea-sick wife Gravol-ed herself unconscious while I failed to placate our "spirited" daughter with cookies and 5-Alive. And on Sunday I woke up on the couch (wife and kid get the big bed) at 7am to watch my doomed football team, on a crappy internet stream, failing to win a match for the twelfth time this season.

But I got to go to my two favourite beer stores in BC. The Brewery Creek and the West Vancouver Liquor Store (no website?) have orgasmic beer collections, and I'll review them in depth in an upcoming blog on my favourite places to buy beer in BC (please post suggestions for me to check out in the comments!)

So I could be sat here reviewing any one of the worthy ales I picked up this weekend, including Paddock Wood Double Double, Southern Tier Unearthly Imperial IPA, and Pelican Brewpub's Tsunami Stout. But they will all have to wait, because the best beer experience of the weekend was the can of Red Racer Pale Ale I gulped with Joyce's home-made Mac'n'Cheese, after another knackering five hour drive-ferry-drive to get home to Victoria.


I'm such a fan of Central City's legendary Red Racer IPA that I tend to forget how good their other beers are. The Pale Ale is very similar to the IPA: same biting grapefruit front end, sweet malty warmth and explosive aroma. But the hop dial is cranked down several notches, allowing the substantial malts to shine.

The hops are lively enough to cut through the dull, creamy nirvana of the Mac', and the sweetness of the malt emphasizes the sharpness of the matured cheddar. The pairing was far more satisfying than the Lamb/Dunkel matchup from the other day, even though the partnership choice was totally restricted by a near-empty fridge. Perhaps there's something in these arranged marriages after all...

*Watch this space for an interview with Driftwood Brewery, reviews of Saskatchewan-based Paddock Wood's noteworthy new beers, and a roundup of BC beer stores — all coming later in the week.