Impromptu Blind IPA/DIPA Tasting

[SomeGuyBrewing]

Had an impromptu blind ipa/double ipa tasting last night. It was sort of last minute and a bit rushed so I’ll be the first to admit there were many flaws in our tasting, but I’m going to tell you about it anyways. We picked out 9 beers to taste. Assigned each beer a letter (A-I). Taped painters tape with a letter at the bottom of each tasting glass. We poured for each other and mixed the glasses up from their og position to ensure unbiased tasting.

The participants/judges:
Someguybrewing: 1+ year homebrewer, 5+ year “serious” craft beer drinker, have drank many European styles of beer but more often than not lean towards American craft, affinity for strong stouts and well done pale ales, drinks IPAs/DIPAs often but rarely is it my first choice.

SomeGuy’s Bro: Craft beer drinker, has travelled extensively in Europe tasting some extremely rare beers, loves European styles, getting more and more into the American scene, affinity for anything “Barrel Aged” and most things Belgium. Had a 2 month obsession with IPAs that settled into him drinking them every once in a while.

SomeGuy’s Friend: BMC drinker, Fat Tire, Shock Top, Blue Moon are the “craft” beers he can stand. Does sometimes express interest in European styles although no real commitment. Affinity towards Bud Light. Thinks IPAs are too bitter, never drinks them.

Beers:
Pliny the Elder – Russian River
Heady Topper – Alchemist
Hop Tanker – El Segundo Brewing
Sculpin – Ballast Point
Torpedo Extra IPA – Sierra Nevada
Lagunitas IPA – Lagunitas
Hop Sauce – Rubicon
Total Domination – Ninkasi
Racer 5 – Bear Republic


Seeing as how the tasting was flawed a bit and everyone’s taste buds are different I won’t bore you with excessive notes and all the rankings but I will tell you guys some generalisms.

Across the board Heady Topper was the #1 pick.
Pliny was in the top 5 for all involved. Bro rated it #2, I rated it #4, BMC Guy rated it #5.
Hop Tanker was the lowest ranked for me and was in the bottom 5 for the other two people. This was surprising considering its high rank in BA and my previous experience with other El Segundo brews.
Hop Sauce was a pleasant surprise, also in everyone’s top 5, Ranking 3rd for me.
Torpedo Extra IPA took my #2 spot, I was shocked.
Sculpin scored poorly for me


All in all it was a fun night and we drank a lot of good beer.

[Inkleg]

Sounds like y'all had a blast, wish I could have been there. Torpedo has always been a solid representation of IPA style and I do like Sculpin, though I like Lagunitas Maximus IPA more.

[Beer-lord]

A nice group of brews. I was IPA schooled on Racer 5 and have only had 1 Heady Topper but I'd rate Pliny just above HT.
Not a bad one in the bunch as far as I can tell.

[Crazy Climber]

Geez, if I had the ability to pull together some of those beers, spur of the moment, for a blind tasting -- hell, for ANY reason -- I'd be on fargin' cloud 9.

For kicks, you should've thrown a Mich Ultra in there, just to see if SomeGuy's Friend would pick that #1.

Thanks for the report, SGB, sounds like a good time was had by all, and the results are certainly interesting.

[SomeGuyBrewing]

My bro just got done traveling on the east coast. He lucked out when he was there and they release a fresh batch of Heady Topper and he was able to bring 8 back. He gave me two to take home and we split one when I first saw him. So we started talking about which was better Pliny or HT, which led to the idea of a blind tasting. The other beers were thrown in to make it interesting.

It was a lot of fun. I take the results with a grain of salt, taste buds are constantly evolving and from past experience what I love today could be "blah" tomorrow. Also I know I really like Sculpin, not sure why it scored low. And I suspect that bottle of Hop Tanker was bad. It smelled like feet HAHA, everyone thought it smelled disgusting. BMC guy really liked Heady Topper, I think we really opened up his mind.

We definitely lucked out with our selection of beers. All and all, 8 of the beers, no matter what they "scored" in our tasting, they were all pretty damn good!

[Kealia]

That's really cool. I've been toying with the idea of doing that with a buddy, too.

I think if/when we do it I am going to limit the beers to just 3, though. I find even when drinking samplers while out that my taste buds get fatigued (for lack of a better word) after just a few and I lose what little detail I can pick up from the first few.

Maybe I'll do it like a bracket and do 3 beers, three times. Then take the winners and do a final bracket.

In any case, I do like Sculpin but it may just be overshadowed by the bigger beers in that group. What tastes really good on it's own may just may not stand up to others when compared side by side. I know that when I was trying the session IPAs out there I really liked Stone's GoTo and Firestone's Easy Jack. Then one night my buddy and I tried them side by side and the Easy Jack seemed so much better than GoTo.

Ok, I'm rambling again. Sounds like a fun night and one that I plan on replicating at some point!

[SomeGuyBrewing]

I definitely think taste bud fatigue set in with 9 beers.

I really like the idea of breaking it down to a few at a time and think that would produce more accurate scores/opinions on the individual beers. Great Idea and one I will definitely use in any future tastings.

I will say we did do head-to-head tasting Pliny v. Heady Topper about an hour before the other tasting. It wasn't blind though as Pliny is SO MUCH clearer than HT it was easy to know what was what. I preferred the HT, I think it has a bit of smoother bitterness (if that makes sense) which I like. My brother couldn't decide which was better.