V Bines: Wet Hopped IPA
5 Paddles Brewing Company

 

 

 

 

V Bines ("5 Bines") is the brewery's wet-hopped IPA and, I'm pleased to report, has a very pale, very bright and only faintly hazed yellow complexion. I'm of the belief that a beer designed expressly to showcase hops aught to leave malt out of it and, by the looks of it, that's exactly what's been done here.

By the way, a "bine" is the correct term for what we mistakenly refer to as the hop "vine". What's the big deal? Well, unless you ask a botanist, it's a rather small distinction actually: vines climb with the help of tendrils or suckers, whereas bines grip with the short, stiff hairs found on their stems.

Funny enough the hops here do the same thing with your nose - they shoot right up into the nostrils, wrap themselves around the millions of sensory neurons, piggyback their way to the olfactory bulb then continue to climb their way over to the piriform cortex, thalamus and ultimately the hippocampus and amygdala which identify their scent with flowers, citrus fruits and the colour green in general.

So which hops exactly set out on this adventure? I was told primarily Nugget and then Cascade, grown in the brewers' own backyards (Citra in the form of dried pellets was also used for dry-hopping). When it comes to IPAs freshness matters arguably as much as anything - and it doesn't get fresher than this.

Literally. This was bottled today! In fact, it still needs to settle a little (there can sometimes be such a thing as "too fresh"). Regardless, citrus skin and mossy herbal flavours are prime, plentiful and sit pretty in the mouth; for a hoppy 6.2% IPA this drinks inexplicably without bitterness, alcohol or density.

I love the fall. It's my favourite season. Warm days and cool nights. Football. Thanksgiving and Halloween. And of course the harvest, of which wet hopped ales like this are an extension of. And this year (2015) the bounty was good - apparently the guys at 5 Paddles are as skilled at farming as they are brewing. I now have a new annual autumn tradition to look forward to...