Enough about session beers, at least for the moment. Let’s get back to hops.
Jay Brooks has the results of the Bistro’s 7th (yes, seventh, this is no fad) Double IPA Festival in Hayward, Calif.
The winner was Dorado Double IPA from Ballast Point Point Brewing, an old friend. We go back to when it was called Crystal Pier and was already winning at the Bistro’s festival.
In 2003 the guys at Ballast were nice enough to put some of Cyrstal Pier into 22-ounce bottles (they sold it only on draft) and ship it to New Mexico. The American Society of Brewing Chemists gathered in a resort north of Albuquerque for their annual convention and I helped Mitch Steele – then of Anheuser-Busch, now with Stone Brewing – round up beers for a seminar on styles.
At that time almost none of the 30-plus brewing industry employees in the room had ever had an “Imperial IPA” (or were ready for other beers like New Belgium’s La Foile and Cuvee de Tomme).
It was an eye-opening experience for me. These guys (meaning men and women) are focused. Many worked for the world’s largest brewers or companies that supply them. They are worried about shelf life, foam stability, stuff like that. No detail is too minute. And they can spot off flavors, and tell you why they are there, at perhaps three miles away.
We asked them to provide comments about the beers they tasted and I just drug those out of a file. I started out looking only at the Ballast Point beer, and that’s all I’ll write about today, but soon was reading more. Within the week I’ll post more notes about some of the other beers.
Only seven of the 28 who left comments said they’d buy Cyrstal Pier in a store.
One wrote: “Tongue scraper requested. Malt is still good.”
On the other side (and I know this was from somebody who worked in packaging at A-B): “Multitudes of flavor! Awesome – I love this new style.”
Maybe my favorite: “‘Savage’ flavor but not taste. Hoppy. Hoppy. Hop. Hop.”
You get the point.
Sweet. “Hoppy. Hoppy. Hop. Hop.” I love that. Gotta figger a beer is great if it reduces somebody to unicellular response.
No crap required guys… I never said I didn’t like beers like this.
Lew. I should have pointed that the hop-hop-hop response was from somebody who didn’t like it.
I really like Dorado Double, more than the Weyerbacher Double Simcoe, for instance. And you gave that one of your 2006 awards.
My preference is toward the lean, dry Double IPAs (but not ones that require a tongue scraper).
BUT I am only vouching for the Dorado Double here. Not every Double/Imperial IPA.
Dorado kicks butt! I even took notes on the bottles I smuggled back from San Fran recently.
Awesome DIPA…balanced even! Ballast Point may be the most underrated brewery in the US. Outside the SoCal area that is. Back to my notes, if anyone gives a turd:
“Hazed nectarine. Blotchy, sustained alabaster suds. Errant lines of big bubbled carbonation. Shaved pink grapefruit pith and tangerine juice aroma with zesty annotations throughout. Initially plush, juiced grapefruit and tangerine hoppy with a powdered sugar and pine aftertaste. Lively fullness and slightly creamy but not thickly so and rigidly hopped to offset. Deep bitterness is clasping yet never comes across as harsh or over the top invasive. Mild tropical flower nectar accents dot the pale malt sweetness along with a skimming of the palest caramel. Finishes slick and citrusy with faint pine dust, mango and crushed sugar accents abounding. Such a great Double IPA.”