IPA Bomberfest 2009

The results of an IPA tasting in celebration of the end of the 2008-2009 school year. I'm not going to go into huge detail, but here are some of the beers in contention:

Green Flash Imperial IPA: I really like the Green Flash West Coast IPA, and this Imperial is exactly right in my view. It's a jacked-up version of the West Coast. Copper color, nice full malt body without too much sweetness, and plenty of both bittering and dry hop profile. Delicious and highly recommended, my favorite so far.

Left Coast Hop Juice: "Left Coast" is the brewing arm of Oggi's Pizza and Brewing in SoCal, but unlike BJ's or JT Schmidt's, apparently Oggi's makes serious beer. This one calls itself a Double IPA, and makes a point of telling you on the bottle that they use three forms of hops: extract, pellets, and flowers. Like the Green Flash, Hop Juice is copper colored with plenty of malt to balance the hops. I found this one good if not great. It lacked the piney, citrus-y, floral hop "stickiness" that I love in a well dry-hopped ale. Nonetheless, a very good showing and I would definitely like to sample it on tap.

Port Brewing (Pizza Port) Wipeout IPA: Unfiltered IPA, with a golden, but slightly orange hue. Like Stone's IPA, this one uses only Centennial hops, a policy I'm not particularly fond of. I like Centennials just fine, but use of a single varietal tends to render a beer a little two dimensional. Wipeout is much lower in alcohol than the previous two at 6% abv, but it packs a nice bitterness with a good, not great, dry-hop stickiness. Less malt than the Imperial and Double, of course. This is a "session" IPA, and for that it's quite good.

Alesmith IPA: Bottle conditioned, copper golden. This one might be the bitterest of the four. Only Hop Juice has the same tang. Not much dry hop presence here, which I sorely miss. A little sweet, but well balanced with plenty of malt at 7.25% abv. I had high hopes for this one, and it's a good beer. But it's not my style of IPA. It focuses too much on the bittering hops and too little on the dry hop. However, this is a very respectable beer and if you favor an IPA that foregrounds bitterness and balance, this one could be for you.

Lagunitas Hop Stoopid: Nice. A double IPA with lots of dry hopped goodness. A definite competitor for top prize. 9% abv, I think, but excellently balanced. Paler than some of the other IPAs, with a golden orange hue. Not too sweet, and the alcohol slips by well. Delicious.

Avery Maharaja IPA: Of all of the ales sampled so far, this is objectively the best I think. It's very rich and a little less dry-hop flavor than I might like, but this is just an excellent, huge, but finely crafted, Imperial IPA. Rich copper color, plenty of tasty bitterness, and huge and complex malt body. This is a serious beer.

Moylan's IPA: Moylan's is a Nor Cal brewer that makes this IPA as well as a "double" and a "triple" IPA. I went for the entry level. At 6.5% abv, a relatively "weak" IPA, but don't take that the wrong way. A nice copper-gold look, a nice rich malt body but not too sweet, and the hops are the star, as they should be. And those hops are pretty nice. Piney, "sticky" and full of tasty dry-hopped goodness. Bitter, but not hugely so. A very nice beer with a manageable abv, but strong and well-done hopping. I look forward to the double and triple!

Deschutes Hop Henge: This one is high on my favorite "go-to" beers, but unfortunately this bottle was not good. The freshness of the hops had disintegrated, leaving plenty of bitterness and the ale's quality rich maltiness, but the hop death made this bottle un-reviewable. I still drank the whole thing though. ;)

Russian River Pliny the Elder: Big shit here in Cali. Whenever the campus pub gets a "special" beer, it tends to be a Russian River ale. I'd actually had this on tap at the Anthill, but didn't remember it well. It's a very nice IPA. Another copper colored example, and the concomitant full malt body. Tons of fresh hop aroma , skunky, citrus, pine, floral. More aggressively carbonated than others, giving it that champagne feel. It also has a very crisp, clean bittering hop profile which gives it almost a spicy, astringent (in a good way) quality. Very, very nice. Worth seeking out.