You know you're considered a beer lover when your mother, who decidedly isn't much of a hop fiend, sends you an email titled "It's National Beer Day!"
So Happy National Beer Day, the day when beer could be legally sold again in 1933 after 13-odd years of Prohibition. Now if that's not worth celebrating, I don't know what is.
To honor the folks who couldn't openly enjoy their favorite brewskis for longer than I've been drinking (yes, do that math), I'm going to share the results from The Ultimate IPA Showdown.
The ultimate? Yes, we went there - and well, I think it's pretty apt.
Pliny v. Heady v. Brother. I've been dreaming of this hoptastic showdown for the last few years. But it's tough to come by, especially when you're faced with some serious acquisition challenges: Fremont's the Brother is only produced seasonally; Russian River's Pliny the Elder is increasingly challenging to get as its distribution continues to shrink; and well, living anywhere outside of Vermont makes retrieving a can of The Alchemist's famed Heady Topper an odyssey in its on right. But somehow the beer deities helped the hop cosmos to align, and by the end of February, I had at least one can or bottle of each.
The Ultimate IPA Showdown was hosted at J's house, where we received tasters labeled 1, 2, and 3 so we could blindly sample each of these epic IPAs (J's sister, R, kindly offered to be mad scientist unblinded to our shenanigans). R poured and set the tasters in front of us, eager beer lovers brimming with the kind of simultaneous excitement and anxiety a child might have upon trying Pop Rocks for the first time.
We tasted, we swilled, we tasted again. Each of us had our biases - for instance, J and I are huge Brother fans - and despite the beer-blinding, we were convinced that our palates, honed over dozens and dozens of trips to Fremont Brewing's UBG (Urban Beer Garden, for those of you not in the know), could suss out our perceived favorite.
But alas, science, as it often does, prevailed. Heady Topper emerged as the top hop, even though my can of the IPA gold was nearing three months old. Pliny snagged second, followed by our beloved Brother.
J and I sat crestfallen, as if our 30-something joys in life had just - poof - disappeared. O Brother, where art thou, with your citrus-y punch and "about a billion IBUs"? No offense to the other victors, but we just couldn't believe it.
Luckily, I had brought two cans of the Brother over to J's, and being my researcher-self, I popped open the second and compared that one with the Brother used in the showdown. They were totally different - the showdown Brother was skunked! Alas, we actually hadn't wrecked our palates over too many IPAs - the Brother was back! Yahoo!
But wait. We didn't have any more Heady. And the whole blind tasting thing couldn't be resurrected, or at least not that night. Another showdown would be necessary, to truly answer the age-old question of which IPA was the fairest of them all...
...and the saga will continue. And until that happens, enjoy your favorite IPA (coughBrothercough) and Hoppy National Beer Day!
Cheers!
N
So Happy National Beer Day, the day when beer could be legally sold again in 1933 after 13-odd years of Prohibition. Now if that's not worth celebrating, I don't know what is.
To honor the folks who couldn't openly enjoy their favorite brewskis for longer than I've been drinking (yes, do that math), I'm going to share the results from The Ultimate IPA Showdown.
The ultimate? Yes, we went there - and well, I think it's pretty apt.
The Ultimate IPA Showdown was hosted at J's house, where we received tasters labeled 1, 2, and 3 so we could blindly sample each of these epic IPAs (J's sister, R, kindly offered to be mad scientist unblinded to our shenanigans). R poured and set the tasters in front of us, eager beer lovers brimming with the kind of simultaneous excitement and anxiety a child might have upon trying Pop Rocks for the first time.
We tasted, we swilled, we tasted again. Each of us had our biases - for instance, J and I are huge Brother fans - and despite the beer-blinding, we were convinced that our palates, honed over dozens and dozens of trips to Fremont Brewing's UBG (Urban Beer Garden, for those of you not in the know), could suss out our perceived favorite.
But alas, science, as it often does, prevailed. Heady Topper emerged as the top hop, even though my can of the IPA gold was nearing three months old. Pliny snagged second, followed by our beloved Brother.
J and I sat crestfallen, as if our 30-something joys in life had just - poof - disappeared. O Brother, where art thou, with your citrus-y punch and "about a billion IBUs"? No offense to the other victors, but we just couldn't believe it.
Luckily, I had brought two cans of the Brother over to J's, and being my researcher-self, I popped open the second and compared that one with the Brother used in the showdown. They were totally different - the showdown Brother was skunked! Alas, we actually hadn't wrecked our palates over too many IPAs - the Brother was back! Yahoo!
But wait. We didn't have any more Heady. And the whole blind tasting thing couldn't be resurrected, or at least not that night. Another showdown would be necessary, to truly answer the age-old question of which IPA was the fairest of them all...
...and the saga will continue. And until that happens, enjoy your favorite IPA (coughBrothercough) and Hoppy National Beer Day!
Cheers!
N
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