Beer Reviews and Sierra Nevada Sampler with friends

My beer reviews are amazing! You should read them and take them as fact! Live your life according to them! 

Watching the Royals and drinking some Sierra Nevada

You may have noticed that I have not done a lot of beer reviews recently. I felt like I was using the same few words to describe beer regardless of how far apart they were in style and taste. I felt like I wasn't giving a value added review and really just telling you about beers I liked and where I had tasted them. However I really do like observing others and their reactions to tasting beers for the first time or hearing how they describe the beer they are drinking. If you don't know me very well, you might not know that I am a people person and I love interacting people whether I know them or not. This is why beer tastings and patios are my favorite events and places to be.

In honor of IPA Day yesterday, I recently had a few of my friends try some India Pale Ales. What's the big deal about this? The three people tasting really don't like IPAs. Most of the time they would scrunch up their face when sipping a hoppy brew. They would normally order something sweet or light. I find great pleasure in helping friends find beers they enjoy that aren't the four major beers. To remedy this hop aversion, I bought a sampler twelve pack from Sierra Nevada of just IPAs. The sampler included Nooner Session IPA, Snow Wit White IPA, Torpedo Extra IPA, and Blindfold Black IPA. How does this solve the problem with people not liking the bitterness of these beers? Just a few years ago, an IPA was an IPA. There wasn’t a lot of variety. Now this could have been my perception towards the craft beer market or actually reality. I felt that the only growing trend was each brewer shaving ever increasing pounds of hops into beer. These brewers called their beers Imperial IPAs. While I thoroughly enjoyed these beers, as I really like IPAs, there was another trend countering the imperialization of hoppy beers. That movement required innovation of what an IPA is. Challenging that idea of an IPA really helped develop different IPAs, white, black, fruit, and session just to name a few styles. I wanted to help broaden my friend’s palates for beer. Though I really had no idea to expect from these and how my friends would react to this selection of IPAs.

Nooner Session IPA

The consensus was that the light flavor of the Nooner Session IPA was refreshing and good for a hot sunny day on a boat, or working in the yard. There wasn’t a lot of hoppiness to the beer, though that’s the point of a session beer. A person should be able to drink a few session IPAs and not have your taste buds shot or to be drunk. We felt that we could drink it, but we might prefer other beers over it.

Snow Wit White IPA

The Snow Wit White IPA had a really good flavor that took on a banana flavor from the Belgian yeast and 7 kinds of hops put into the beer. If you didn’t get the reference I will spell it out for you. Snow wit and the 7 hops? You know like a certain child’s fairy tale. If you still don’t get, I will pat you on the head as I explain it to you over a beer. C really liked this beer and said this was her favorite beer.

Torpedo Extra IPA

Torpedo Extra IPA was a maverick for me. With the word Extra in front of IPA, I fully expected something like an Imperial IPA, however I was surprised there wasn’t a lot of bitterness that those big IPAs have. I had to look up the IBUs and it was only a 65 when the high end IPAs are at 60 and IIPAs get closer to 100. My friends were surprised as well by the drinkability and flavor that wasn’t too bitter. They enjoyed these and were curious about other IPAs like it. I have a few suggestions for them, for future IPAs to try.

Blindfold Black IPA

The last IPA was Blindfold, a black IPA. This one was very malty with only a little of the fragrant notes of hops. My friend Nicky really liked this one. He has found that he likes the darker, maltier beers like browns, porters, and dunkels. This beer fit his mold and his eyes widen with his first sip! He actually asked me, “Are we drinking IPAs?! Are you pulling my leg? Cause these are good!”

After we made it all the way through the lineup, we went back through trying beers back to back to see how the flavors were affected by the previous beer. For example the Nooner was even less flavorful after having the Torpedo or the Snow Wit had a big mouth feel but less sweet after having a sip of the Blindfold.

Overall this was a very good time showing people these beers they wouldn’t normally get. I would suggest you all do the same and keep an eye for sampler packs that might help you find a new favorite beer.