August 2013 Tasting: Imperial IPA
Posted: Tue Jul 30, 2013 9:48 am
8/14/13
IIPA.
Love it or hate it.
If you love it, a good IIPA is like crack to any homebrewer, as evidenced by the Godfather of all IIPAs, Pliny the Elder by Russian River being 5 years running Zymurgy beer of the year as voted on by AHA members.
Kind of like wine to homebrewers, makes us use all sorts of pretentious-sounding usually made up adjectives to describe flavors and aromas like piny, grassy, fruity, florally, citrusy, grapefruity, sexgasmy, etc. Next time you’re in public enjoying a nice IIPA and getting perplexed looks from bystanders because you have your nose buried in the glass, yeah, you’re that jackass.
Relax. Don’t worry, you’re amongst friends in the LBG. So go ahead and savor those spicy, citrusy, and am-I-getting-stone-fruit? iso-alpha and beta acids.
And for those of you who have been consistently turned off by examples that are overly bittered to the extent that nothing else is distinguishable, don’t worry, I’m with you. I intend to present hop-forward ales that are also well-balanced and not bitter-bombs. Of course that is completely subjective, but it is my goal anyway.
Pröst!
Duane
Biermeister
IIPA.
Love it or hate it.
If you love it, a good IIPA is like crack to any homebrewer, as evidenced by the Godfather of all IIPAs, Pliny the Elder by Russian River being 5 years running Zymurgy beer of the year as voted on by AHA members.
Kind of like wine to homebrewers, makes us use all sorts of pretentious-sounding usually made up adjectives to describe flavors and aromas like piny, grassy, fruity, florally, citrusy, grapefruity, sexgasmy, etc. Next time you’re in public enjoying a nice IIPA and getting perplexed looks from bystanders because you have your nose buried in the glass, yeah, you’re that jackass.
Relax. Don’t worry, you’re amongst friends in the LBG. So go ahead and savor those spicy, citrusy, and am-I-getting-stone-fruit? iso-alpha and beta acids.
And for those of you who have been consistently turned off by examples that are overly bittered to the extent that nothing else is distinguishable, don’t worry, I’m with you. I intend to present hop-forward ales that are also well-balanced and not bitter-bombs. Of course that is completely subjective, but it is my goal anyway.
Pröst!
Duane
Biermeister
