India Pale Ale

This beer came to me from Wisconsin in a mixed box of bottles I received as a gift a couple weeks ago. Most of my attention was focused on the New Glarus bottles I received and I completely overlooked this Shergill IPA. This bottle is fairly nondescript, it's a simple red, white and green label with an Indian parade elephant on the bottom. I decided to open up this bottle today because it'll be one of the few early fall 70+ degree days we'll have left. I've got a pork shoulder on the smoker, the dog is sleeping on the deck and things seem pretty great... then I went and ruined it all by pouring a glass of what has to be the worst beer I've had this year. Seriously, it's bad, really bad...

I'm still going through all the bottles of Indiana beer that showed up last month and I decided it was time to open up one of these Dragonfly Pale Ales from Upland Brewing Company in Bloomington. I've heard the name Upland before and their logo looks familiar but I don't ever remember seeing their beers on shelves or taps anywhere, so I've never been able to try them before. I know very little about Upland so I'm going into this IPA relatively blind. I don't like the first beer I have from a brewery to be their IPA since they're really hit or miss with me, but this is the Upland beer I have so here it goes...

I've never been a big fan of Stone's beer, but there have been a few bottles I've enjoyed on occasion so I keep bringing Stone beer home with me. I've been trying to pick my battles a little better, so instead of buying up one of each Stone beer (mostly because there are just so damn many of them) I'm sticking with the styles I tend to enjoy the most ...but of course there are exceptions, like this bottle of Stone IPA. IPA is hit or miss style for me, I think too many brewers just throw a ton of hops at a kettle and call it a day. That was my fear with this beer based off of some other Stone beers I've had before. So why's I make an exception and bring home a bomber of their IPA? Easy, it's got a note to Kansas City printed on the back. Beer drinkers are a fickle bunch.

"A liquid poem to the glory of the hop!" That's what it says on the front of this bottle of Stone Ruination IPA. Stone's beers have nearly has much hyperbole in the bottle as they have hops. Ruination is a beer I've been in no hurry to try because I feel that I've already got a really good idea of what it's going to taste like, based off of the other Stone beers I've had before. Don't get me wrong, Stone makes some really interesting beer. In my opinion, those interesting beers are the ones that are hybrid Belgo-styles, big Imperial Stouts or are otherwise less hoppy than a west coast IPA. Ruination is one of Stone's west coast IPAs and I'm convinced there won't be much for me to look forward to in this beer. We'll see...

Heavy Seas beers have really impressed me. I was hesitant to try these pirate themed beers from Baltimore at first because, well... they have cartoony pirates on the label. After having four or five different Heavy Seas beers I trust that the other brands are going to be pretty enjoyable too. Last week I picked up a bottle of Loose Cannon, Heavy Seas' IPA. I'd heard a lot of good things about this IPA and I've been looking forward to sitting down with a bottle and trying it for myself. This bottle has a purchase by date of May 2011, so I'm still well within the freshness window. I say that because this beer turned out to smell and taste incredibly old...

Smuttynose is one of those breweries that I've heard of numerous times in passing, but I've never seen their beer on the shelves... or on tap. Smuttynose beers come from the great state of New Hampshire, so it makes sense that I never saw them on the far side of the Mississippi. Now that I'm on the East Coast I've started seeing their beers on shelves and decided to pick up a bottle. On my drive home from work tonight I stopped at a small liquor store and built a six pack with some of the more interesting beers in their cooler. I opted for the Smuttynose IPA, I figured it was better suited to the warm weather than the Robust Porter.

Victory HopDevil is a year round IPA out of Downingtown, PA. It's 6.7% alcohol and brewed with some mediocre hops and barley. I don't know a whole lot more about this beer because I'm completely disinterested in it. It's an IPA that has a reference to hops in its name and it comes from a brewery I don't really care too much about. I'm trying to keep an open mind because I felt the same way about Hopslam and it ended up being one of the best beers I've ever had. I'm hopeful for HopDevil, but I won't be surprised if it's just another IPA I'll never drink again.

Stone is one brewer who's beers I was just not in a hurry to try. They're beers seem too gimmicky to me. Each one is hoppier and more bitter than the last. Arrogance just doesn't appeal to me, especially when it comes to be. I've only had a handful of Stone beers before because they don't distribute to this part of the country and I haven't really went out of my way to procure any more than those few. What I've had wasn't bad, but it wasn't something I'd drink regularly if it were readily available. I did enjoy Stone's collaboration with Nøgne Ø and Jolly Pumpkin but didn't expect to find much of that beer in the rest of the Stone line up because it was Christmas seasonal collaboration. Nonetheless, I'm keeping an open mind and hoping for something a little less arrogant as I pour myself a glass of Cali-Belgique.

I don't start this off by saying how much I don't like IPAs. I've said it a million times before so there's no need to say it again. What I will say is that I do tend to like IPAs that showcase hop flavor rather than bitterness. While Deschutes doesn't distribute to my area, I have heard that there beers are a great example of how you should use hops in a beer. I got my hands on a couple of bottles of Inversion IPA and decided to see how Deschutes uses their hops for myself. The packaging intrigues me, which is a great start. The imagery of Oregon's high desert and peaks above the clouds... it's pretty cool, I'm sold on a visit to Bend.

Sand Creek and the Lilja line of beers don't make their way this far southwest so I had to bring this bottle back from Illinois myself. I knew virtually nothing about this beer when I picked it up this summer, I was just on the look out for beers that weren't distributed back home. I picked up a number of Lilja's bottles and promptly forgot all about them... This Hop Nest Monster IPA has been sitting in the basement for a couple months now so I figured I'd better hurry up and drink it because it certainly isn't getting any younger... It's for the best really, as the summer weather turns to fall and I bring the sweaters out of storage, hoppy IPAs won't be my first choice of beer.