IPA's are a new edition to my beer repertoire, myself. I had tried a few on my beer pilgrimage early on, and then segregated them from my favorites early on. Why did I do this? I believe it was probably for the same reason that my casual beer friend, Adam, did. When you try an IPA, you get a flavor explosion. An IPA should have a multifaceted hop taste and aroma. Equally important to me, would be the taste of the malt backbone. The sweetness of the malt has to be there to carry the greatness of the hops to come through.
As I said, I'm fairly new to the world of the IPA world. I've only had a handful. I had never had Sam Adam's Latitude 48 and when I heard about the Deconstructed box, I knew I would wait to try until I reviewed the box set.
When I bought the 12 pack, I was on the way to a late dinner with my girlfriend and realized that I was out of beer at home. It was about 8:15 and our liquor stores close at 9, so I stopped into a liquor store that I've never been to in a shady part of town (with a turnstile so you can't run out no less). I assumed that I wouldn't have many beer options, and I was right, but then this jewel in the rough appeared to me.
I brought it home and was convinced to not open and try it until I could do all of them in one night. This was a Wednesday. I work in the mornings through the week, so I didn't want to drink all six until Friday night. They burnt a hole in my fridge. Friday came and I by that time, I was so serious about trying these beers together, I decided to set up an informal tasting for a friend.
In the following, I'll put my opinions bold (because this is my blog dammit), and my friend's in plain text.
Original 48: This beer has a good malt character, but it may be too strong to be a great IPA. The taste is pretty complex, but the hop character is a tad understated. The aroma is pine and citrus. I would prefer to have a good American Pale Ale or a Bridgeport: Hop Czar rather than this almost hybrid.
This isn't as bitter as I expected. The after taste contains the bitter parts.
Ahtanum: I got a lot less of a shot of malt at the beginning. The smell was pine, but the taste was less understated in all accounts.
Less bitter and tasted more watered down...
East Kent Goldings: This one is sweet! It is hop in aroma and malt in taste. It has the familiarity of a traditional English bitter (which I guess makes sense considering the location). I liked this one, but it's not an IPA.
This is my favorite. It's much more sweet than the others.
Hallertau: Heavy on the malt aroma for an IPA. The hop was the most understated to me. It tastes a lot like an altbier made in limited quantities by Shiner. This was my favorite of the sweet (not IPA-esque deconstructs).
This had a more bitter and more full flavor than many of the single-hopped beers. It wasn't very aromatic at all.
Zeus: Grapefruit!!! This one is similar to Ranger IPA. I think it compliments the malt quite well.
Yep, tastes like grapefruit. Bleh, this is gross.
Simcoe: (on a side note, I'm drinking this one again while I write this review...) This had a light citrus, mild grapefruit flavor. This beer is the most refreshing in the set.
This just tastes like a less flavorful version of Zeus.
Original Again: The second tasting of this was very fulfilling and complex. The malt and multiple hop flavors are more readily present. I would absolutely like to be able to do this same experiment again with a beer I like more. This box should have actually been called Reconstructed, as I couldn't tell how much of a difference the varieties of hops were doing until I tried all 5 single hopped varieties and then the original again. The beer was reconstructed in my eyes. Thinking about how many different flavors are imparted by the type of hops is amazing to me, since hopped beer wasn't even the norm when beer was "invented." This is relatively new in the long, long history of beer. We wouldn't even know the taste of ancient beer if we tried it.
All the hop flavors were more distinct. I still didn't taste as much of Ahtanum as it was the least flavorful / least important of the 5 hop varieties.
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All in all, I'm very impressed in the knowledge this collection imparted. It was a Beer University in a box. I hope that this experiment is successful for SA, as I'd love to see it again with another style. For me, it would be Noble Pils, because I'm curious if all 5 of the Noble Hops helped or hurt the beer.
This experiment opened my friends eyes to the IPA and for that I'm grateful. The beer is quickly disappearing in my fridge now that I don't have to stay sober to point out flavor variations.
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For people who have read me in the past, I'm back! I took a lot of time off from my last post and haven't really worked on any other projects either. I'm looking forward to getting back in to writing and hope that you will enjoy my work as you have before.
To anyone new, Godspeed and Beer on! I'm a pipe smoking, beer drinking, outdoor enthusiast, so expect this blog to talk about just that.
