Green Flash West Coast IPA: This four hop big beer (7.3% abv; 95 ibu) is multilayered with Simcoe hops for grapefruit, Columbus for earthiness, hop aroma, and some bittering, Centennial to add pine notes and Cascade for floral balanced with a slight caramel tone from malt. Often considered the flagship of this brewery.
Hop Head Red IPA, still pretty big (7%abv, 70 ibu) with Columbus, Nugget and dry hopped with Amarillo -- ample Amarillo so, you guessed it, floral and slightly orange in a nice Red. (GABF Silver 07, Bronze 09)
Citra Session IPA, yep sessionable at 4.5% abv and only 45ibu, as a single hop ale delivering orange, grapefruit and grassy notes with Maris Otter and Vienna malt underneath.
Saison Diego Ale, unfiltered farmhouse ale brewed with Seville Spanish style orange peels, Chinese ginger and grains of paradise delivers bright spicy deliciousness at 20ibu. Certainly one I could enjoy a couple of pints of!
The bad news is that apparently Rayon Vert (Green flash in French) is not only not coming here but not being brewed and that 7% bottle conditioned Belgian Pale is one I'll need to look or trade for before they are all gone.
Of course the local Indiana scene has plenty of local IPAs.
The Brewers' Cup this year awarded Gold to my local Roof Top from Bloomington Brewing, Silver to MoonKing from Half Moon in Kokomo, and Bronze to SuperFly (an Indy Southside favorite) from Oaken Barrel, Greenwood.
In mentioning BBC locally I must give props to Ten Speed Wheat IPA as another very drinkable complex beer.
So what are YOU drinking on National IPA DAY? I must admit I had to enjoy Stone RuinTen (wow, the complexity at 110 ibu and 10% abv) with tropical fruit leading to bitterness and still the underbelly of malt! Then a small sample of Stone Sublimely Self-Righteous BLACK IPA with a slight sweetness and wonderful hoppy character at "only" 90 IBU.
Hoppy days!
Greg Kitz
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2 comments:
I'm in the midst of losing weight and trying to get back in shape so I've cut out drinking during the week. I went mountain bike riding in Castleton near Scotty's Brewhouse for the first time. Absolutely kicked my ass. So i decided to stop at Payless Liquors on 96th St. Very rarely do I ever run into a fresh 6 pack of Founders Centennial IPA so i jumped all over that. Bottled about 2 weeks ago. Just drank one. Sublime.
I was pretty jacked about Green Flash finally hitting Indiana. Kind of pisses me off knowing they're opening a production brewery in Virginia Beach because I lived there for about 8 years but yeah, knowing their beers were hitting our state had me excited. I've traded for their beers in the past and usually grab a few when I'm in Chicago.
I wanted to grab some today but what's the deal with them just hitting our market with most bottles timestamped from May? Not to be a freshness snob but I want my IPA's as fresh as possible and delivering 3 month old hop bombs (delicious when fresh) to a new market isn't the best way to go about things
- Mike
happy they've finally made it and looking forward to the future releases in that Hop Odyssey project - the Citra Session is so so good and I hope I find it on tap at least one more time (and better yet, may the rumors be true of a bottling plan for those beers).
Would love to try the Citra Session right next to Zombie Dust.
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