Thursday, May 27, 2004

The Times reviews IPAs.

And does a fair job of it, although no better than fair. They give some history of India Pale Ales - accurate, to my knowledge - and then review some. Well, they claim to taste 21, but give reviews on only 10 (and the video review has even fewer). The top-rated ones were the Smuttynose Big A IPA, Stone IPA, and Dogfish Head's 90-minute Imperial IPA. Can't really disagree too much with those choices, but I think their methodology was suspect: they were missing Pacific Northwest IPAs - such as Bridgeport's IPA - and they included non-IPAs in their tasting (Imperial IPAs - IPAs on steroids - and Imperial pale ales, where "Imperial" in the style designation indicates a lot more barley in the mix, resulting in more flavor and about 2% more alcohol than is normal for the style). And they were missing standard East Coast IPAs, as well - I can understand their not having Cottonwood's Endo Pale Ale, but leaving Tupper's Hop Pocket Ale out of their tasting?

Still, it's more complete beer coverage than the Post has.

No comments: