It's with beers like this one that my inexperience really tells. I'm afraid I wasn't into this IPA by
Arbor Ales at all. Perhaps I had a bad bottle? Basically, I'm not sure! I've had the Yakima Red from
Meantime - they describe the Yakima hops as imparting "spectacular fruit and citrus flavours". This IPA from Arbor using similar hops did not impart such flavours. It had a sickly, caramely taste, not entirely dissimilar to those super strength lagers like
Helden Braü,
Special Brew and
the classic Steinberg Super. I've had 2 beers relatively recently that've had that same distinctive sweet cloyingness:
Dark Star 6 Hops and the
Old Dairy Brewery Hop Top. Is this a style of beer that I simply don't like? Or perhaps I've had a bottles from a ropey batch? Post a comment to let me know!
Just had a tweet from Jon Arbor to say that the "sweet cloyingness" of this beer is due to the simply massive hop dose in this beer! (I understand that the hop quotient for Meantime Yakima Red pales in comparison.) I suppose it follows that the Dark Star 6 Hops and Old Dairy Brewery Hop Top are brewed in a similar way and the flavour I don't like is the actual (super magnified) hop flavour. More sampling required obviously!
ReplyDeleteApologies for any upset on this - retrospectively, it seems "sweetness" was perhaps the wrong phrase to use here (but it seemed right at the time). Having said that, a lot of reviews here: http://www.ratebeer.com/beer/arbor-yakima-valley-american-ipa/138945/ mention the sharp citrus notes in this beer. I'm sure I didn't get any of that in my bottle I'm afraid.
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