![]() ![]() Entries were judged by how much we enjoyed them for whatever reason, not by how well they fit any kind of preconceived style guidelines. Beers were judged completely blind by how enjoyable they were as individual experiences and given scores of 1-100, which were then averaged. Awesome, style-appropriate glassware is from Spiegelau. #Russian river mosaic stack professionalTasters included professional beer writers, brewery owners, brewmasters and beer reps. The beers were separated into daily blind tastings that approximated a sample size of the entire field. There was a limit of only two entries per brewery. All types of adjuncts and flavorings were allowed. Beers labeled as “DIPA” were accepted if their ABV was still under 8%. There was a strict limit of 8% ABV on submissions. When in doubt, we simply allow a brewery’s marketing to define a beer’s style, and expect them to stick to the designation they’ve chosen. All beers had to be labeled as “IPA” in some capacity. This is a tasting of IPAs, largely determined by how the breweries chose to label their products. It’s by no means a perfect system, but it’s what we have.īefore the finals tasting, we also reached out to all of the breweries in the top 25 to inform them that their beer had made the finals, and offered them an opportunity to send in fresh beer if they chose to do so for the final. Throughout the many days of preliminary tasting, we attempted to drink daily heats of beer that corresponded roughly to when each beer reached the Paste office. Obviously, when it comes to tasting IPAs, freshness is a factor that looms large, so allow me to address it directly here. There will never be a “perfect” tasting lineup, much as we continue to try. We apologize for a few significant omissions that we couldn’t acquire, either due to seasonality or market shortages. We always do our best to reach out to breweries we’re aware of that make exemplary versions of particular styles, but things always do slip through the cracks. Read on, and find out.Īs in most of our blind tastings at Paste, the vast majority of these IPAs were sent directly to the office by the breweries that choose to participate, with additional beers acquired by us via locally available purchases and the occasional trade. Some of those opinions will be reflected in the beers you see in the ranked portion of this tasting. Suffice to say, we have some strong opinions, positive and negative, about where IPA is headed. In it, I’ve tried to capture the distilled perspective one gains about a modern American beer style while blind-tasting 324 of them over the course of 17 days. Thus, allow me to redirect you to our companion piece, The State of IPA: Hazy, Juicy, Sludgy and Confused. ![]() In fact, the question of “What is India pale ale today?” has simply become too onerous and multifaceted to tackle adequately during the introduction of this piece. Even organizations that are resistant to change, such as the Brewers Association, have had to officially recognize some of these changes such as the normalization of hazy IPAs by stating that 2018’s GABF competition will for the first time divide the IPA field into “hazy” and “non-hazy” camps. Since the last time we did this tasting, trends have come and gone, and the pace of adaptation in the market has seemingly only accelerated. As the beer geek market has matured, IPA has changed and matured along with it, branching off into numerous offshoots like capillaries splitting from an artery. The main reason why is the enduring, seemingly ever-strengthening popularity of India pale ale with American drinkers. Every time we do this, it seems like the previous mark will be impossible to surpass. And it’s true once again here in 2018, with 324 of them-not far behind the 408 entries (also a record) at the Great American Beer Festival last year. It was equally true in 2016 when we blind-tasted IPAs again and received a whopping 247 entrants. The first time was in 2015, and the 116 beers we received then seemed like a staggering, unfathomable figure. We have blind-tasted IPAs (that’s “single IPA”) three times, at Paste. How do you introduce the largest blind tasting that Paste has ever conducted? I suppose the answer is “with a little context.” For our companion piece and final conclusions on the style after blind-tasting 324 of these beers, read today’s The State of IPA: Hazy, Juicy, Sludgy and Confused. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Details
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |