IPA round-up No. 1 – Founders Centennial IPA review

All hail the king of FatCat's IPA shootout.  The Founders came, it saw, and it dominated!

STATS:

ABV:  7.2%
IBU:   65

Founders has a tremendous reputation when it comes to the stellar stouts they offer.  But the question was, could the IPA measure up to the likes of Two Hearted or Odell?  The answer was a definitive YES!  In 2010, Ratebeer.com ranked Founders the 4th best brewery in the world.  Founders also has several beers listed in the top one hundred beers on Beeradvocate.com. They were winners of four medals at the 2010 World Beer Cup, and the winner of two medals at the 2010 Great American Beer Festival.  Founders is one serious craft brewery.

The Centennial IPA poured with a small white head that dissipated quickly.  The nose yields gentle hop aroma with slight hints of caramel in the background.  The taste of this brew is balanced perfectly with hop flavor and caramel.  Yes this brew has malt character with caramel notes, but it was not overpowering as was the case for some other beers in the shootout.  The caramel notes create perfect harmony with the beautiful hop flavor in this brew.  The brew finishes clean and leaves you hunting for more.  Luckily there's five more where that came from.  This brew is a pure joy to drink.

While doing research I found this brew has something in common with the Bell's Two Hearted Ale.  What's that you might ask?  It is also brewed exclusively with the Centennial hop.  This is the reason I love craft brew.  Here are two beers brewed with the same type of hop and are completely different.  The Two Hearted is a refreshing citrus brew and the Founders is a more complex caramel brew of pure deliciousness.

Conclusion:
Man that is one super freakin' sweet ass delicious hop!

Cheers

IPA round-up No. 2 – Odell IPA review

Odell Myrcenary = awesome so Odell IPA = awesome, right?

Stats:

ABV:  7.0%

IBU:  60 

I never had this brew prior to the shootout.  However, based on my previous experience with Odell Myrcenary, it was my intuition that this brew was going to be awesome.  The beauty of human nature is some how intuition, also known as gut instinct, is frequently correct.  This particular magic of the human psyche has proved correct and the Odell IPA placed second in our shootout.  The Odell IPA poured with a big fluffy head.    The nose of the brew expressed citrus and floral notes.  This IPA was very balanced with consideration of malt sweetness to hop bitterness.  Along with the balance, this IPA had a very clean finish.  The hops on finish are not astringent but instead very pleasing.  The balance along with the clean finish leads to a very pleasant and enjoyable IPA.  As this brew warms, it expresses hints of grapefruit which enhances the overall experience.  This IPA is top notch and I would recommend this to anyone.

Conclusion:
Intuition is a delicious trait.

Cheers!

IPA round-up No. 3 – Boulevard Single Wide review

The sleeper, at least from our past experience, was the Boulevard Single Wide.  It turned out to be one of our favorites.

Stats:

ABV:  5.7%
IBU:   57

The Single Wide poured with a huge white fluffy head.  The carbonation in this particular bottle was very high causing about a three finger head when poured.  The smell out of the bottle was very hoppy with hints of grapefruit.  Once poured in my glass the head seemed to block most of the smell of the brew.  What could be detected in the glass was delicate citrus and faint grapefruit.  What surprised me about the Single Wide was how the taste and mouthfeel didn't indicate the lower ABV.  At 5.7% it was one of the lower ABVs in our shootout, but it tasted just as big as the others.  The initial reaction to the Single Wide is that it is well balanced and is not overly bitter.  The signature of the Single Wide is the deep and complex grapefruit flavors. 

Conclusion:

Kudos to Boulevard Brewing Company for the delicious local brew and keep up the good work.

Cheers

IPA round-up No. 4 – Bell’s Two Hearted Ale review

I will be wrapping up FatCat’s 2011 IPA shootout by reviewing the top four. And without further adieu, the number four beer in our shootout is Bell’s Two Hearted Ale.

Stats:

ABV: 7.0%

IBU: Not disclosed

Bell’s Two Hearted Ale was my initial favorite to win the shootout. It is one of the best IPAs available in this area. The Two Hearted poured with a huge persistent head, white in color. The smell is bright and citrusy. This brew is super smooth and refreshing. It is so delightfully refreshing you can put a couple of these down without realizing you are drinking a high abv IPA. That is of course, until you stand up from your lawn chair. The real signature of this brew is the slight lemony flavor mixed in with the hoppy goodness. The other IPAs in the shootout did not have this lemon taste and is part of the reason the Two Hearted is so refreshing. Yes I know I’ve used “refreshing” several times here but that is immediately what I think when I think of Two Hearted. It’s like peanut butter and Jelly, Two Hearted and refreshing, see it works! One of the most intriguing aspects of the Two Hearted Ale is that it uses one type of hop and one hop only. The Centennial hop is the only hop used and is added several times throughout the brewing process.

Conclusion:

Man that is one delicious hop!



Cheers

FatCat's 2011 IPA shootout results epilogue

I felt it necessary to clarify the purpose and some details regarding the IPA shootout.  First and foremost the shootout was organized and conducted in the name of fun and fun only.  The IPA shootout results should be interpreted as such.  I nor anybody involved claim to be experts of any kind regarding beer judging.  We leave that to the BJCP certified beer judges. 

  

If anyone wishes to now what beer judges think, check out the Great American Beer Festival winners or the World Beer Cup winners.  These official beer competitions are great sources of information, but I have a complaint.  A great majority of the beers ranked are not available to us and some I've never even heard of.  Therefore if some beer from California is a gift straight from the beer gods, it means nothing to me in Kansas City. 

Another great source of beer information and reviews is Beer Advocate or Rate Beer.  I encourage anyone who is interested in beer rankings or trying craft brews to check out those sites for information.  I frequent these sites and picked many of my entries for the shootout from the top 50 on Beer Advocate.  These sites provide rankings based on reviewers but I always wondered what would happen if these brews were reviewed back to back.  Would the rankings hold up?  So based on my curiosity I organized the IPA shootout.

One of my objectives is to provide useful information to the craft beer un-initiated or rookies through this site.  As I stated before, if we can save one person from the grips of lifeless lager and convert them to the magic of craft brew I have succeeded.  With that note I have sent many rookies to the Beer Advocate website and I get the same reaction.  What is floral?  How do you taste pine? What does a wet blanket on a summers night next to a fire taste like?  Then they look at me like I've tried to introduce a Calculus equation to them and that I'm the biggest nerd within a 20 yard radius.  So with this in mind I wanted to introduce a simple way to rate the beers. We thought some beers tasted better than others so that is how we rated them. Overly simple in some people's mind, probably.  But someone who knows nothing about IPA's can now have a general idea of what's pretty good and where to find it.

I did not want to use plastic cups.  I drink all of my beer out of glass in my everyday life.  I checked the BJCP Judge Procedure Manual and it states that hard plastic cups are a legitimate vessel to sample beer in.  This goes along with pictures I've seen in magazines showing beer samples in plastic cups submitted for judging.  I still did not want to use plastic cups.  My dilemma was I wanted to taste 11 beers back to back.  This would mean we would have 44 glasses piled on the table.  I couldn't figure out a reliable way to label the glasses without ruining the glass.  I contemplated just setting the glasses on labeled cards but wanted no possibility of mixing them up. We used (2) 12oz bottles per entry and (1) 22oz bottle for a total of 23 bottles of beer for this tasting.  This (for me anyway) was a significant investment monetarily, not to mention the time/gas we put into this.  So getting the drinks mixed up and completely ruining the tasting was not an option.  Plastic cups it is then.

I received several comments regarding my comment that we downgraded two IPA's due to there malty character.  In my personal opinion the maltiness in those two beers interfered with the hop aroma and flavor. Hop aroma and flavor are trademarks of the IPA style for me (again not BJCP certified).  I was attempting to give insight to people who might not have any experience with IPA's. If they wanted to try a "mellower" IPA with regards to hop intensity, the two malty IPA's may be a good starting point.

I would like to thank everyone who has read the IPA shootout and for your comments.  The shootout was so much fun and I encourage you to try one of your own.  I think it would be just as much fun with 3 or 4 beers, so don't think you need a bunch of beers to blind test.  FatCatKC has several other shootouts planned for various styles and will be announced as we go. 

Hope you enjoyed the IPA shootout and as always...

Cheers!

FatCat's 2011 IPA shootout results!

The shootout is complete and 11 IPA’s are down. The numbers have been tallied and we have a winner!

This was a blind tasting, meaning we had no idea which beers we were drinking. The Mrs was gracious enough to pour the beers into 44 different tasting cups and deliver them to us on the back porch. We tasted each of our 11 samples and then rated them 1-5, 1 being the worst and 5 being the best. We are by no means beer judges and rated them purely on taste and smell. This was a ton of fun and we were surprised by the results to say the least. I will be detailing the reviews of some of the top performers in later posts.

And the winner is:

1.    Founder’s Centennial IPA                 16.5pts
2.    Odell IPA                                         16.0pts
3.    Boulevard Single Wide                     15.0pts
4.    Bell’s 2 hearted                                14.5pts
5.    Sam Adams Latitude 48                   13.5pts
6.    Goose Island IPA                            11.5pts
7.    Arcadia IPA                                      9.5pts
8.    Sierra Nevada Torpedo                     9.0pts
9.    Bear Republic Racer 5                       8.0pts
10. Great Divide Titan                               8.0pts
11. Schlafly Export IPA                            7.0pts

FatCat’s Favorites:

Latitude 48    4.5pts

Founder’s      4.5pts

Boulevard      4.0pts

Super Dave’s Favorites:

Odell IPA   5.0pts

Founder’s   4.0pts

Bell’s          4.0pts

Boulevard   4.0pts

Greg’s Favorites:

Founder’s   4.0pts

Bell’s          4.0pts

Boulevard   4.0pts

Alex’s Favorites:

Odell          4.5pts

Founder’s  4.0pts

Bell’s         3.5pts




Conclusion:

Our results were surprising. We were in agreement the Bell’s 2 Hearted would most likely be the best. None of us had tried the Odell IPA before the shootout, but I reasoned that if the Myrcenary was so good that the regular IPA should be good too. Prior to the test, Super Dave and I both liked the Latitude 48 because of the super clean taste and thought it would finish higher. A few beers were scored lower during the shootout because they had significant malt flavor compared to the others. These were the Racer 5 and the Titan. Neither were bad beers, just scored lower due to the maltiness.

I know there are people out there like WTF where’s the Stone? I swear I bought a 22oz of Stone IPA prior to the shootout, but when all the bottles were lined up, I couldn’t find the Stone. My hypothesis is the beer-drinking gnome that watches over my homebrew drank it. This is the price you have to pay to have a drunk gnome channel the beer gods and guard your house.

This will be the base line test for IPA’s. We will use the top 3 out of this test to compare to other IPA’s like Stone and even some FatCat’s homebrew. We will keep a rolling competition going. If you have any suggestions of what you want to see in the next IPA shootout, email me.

Where we got ‘em:

Founder’s Centennial IPA – Gomer’s Midtown          Sam Adams Latitude 48-Tipsy’s
Schlafly Export IPA-Gomer’s Midtown                     Goose Island IPATipsy’s
Bell’s 2 hearted-Gomer’s Midtown                           Arcadia IPA- Tipsy’s
Odell IPA-Tipsy’s                                                    Great Divide Titan-Hyvee State Line
Sierra Nevada Torpedo-Tipsy’s                               Boulevard Single Wide-Hyvee State Line
Bear Republic Racer 5-Tipsy’s