Less-grapefruity IPA

Harpoon IPA?

 

Go buy Goose Island, its a good value, and its more on the english side of the style. See if thats the direction he wants to go in before you go hunting the perfect match.

 

As a fellow AZ resident he can find this at any Total Wine or BevMo and they are usually fresh but tell him to check dates especially at TW as they will sometimes have old bottles and you don't want his first experience with a new beer to be a bad one.

 

Hoptimum

 

Twenty years ago? IPA wasn't that popular 20 years ago.
It would definitely be something Olde Englishy....
A CT brewer, STONY BROOK has struck a nerve with our customers and his '860 IPA' which offended the NEW IPA sensibilities of the younguns 'round these parts.
"There's no grapefruity pine tree taste!" , they said......
(We're on our 5th keg now)

 

Smuttynose, G Knight, Torpedo, easy to get most places

 

Is it wrong of me to remember this list of brews as a pile of IPA's to avoid?

long live the grapefruit!

 

If you're talking about this thread as a list, then absolutely not!

 

If I want the taste of grapefruit I go to the supermarket and buy juice , cheaper, healthier and I can drive after drinking as much as I like.
Am I alone in wanting my beer to taste of , er, beer ?

Back to the OP, there are lots of IPAs which fit your bill. The so-called English (though Scotland was always at the forefront of IPA brewing) IPA style will offer plenty of scope.

 

I happen like citrus bombs myself, but as good as ht is its not a grapefruit bomb, just a very well made DIPA.

 

I assume you associate the taste of hops with beer, or did your comment mean you like your beer not to taste of hops? Or are EKG, Fuggles, and other more traditional English hops the only hops that qualify as taste of beer? Or...? Very confusing comment.

Are the corollaries true for you as well? If I want the taste of pine I will bite on a pine tree, I want my beer to taste like beer. If I want to taste pepper (saisons) I will dispense it from a shaker, I want my beer to taste like beer. If I want to taste caramel I will buy a square at the candy store, I want my beer to taste like beer?

 

Hops are a funny thing, and you get all different kinda flavor hints mixing and matching. You like grapefruit Citra hops are killer, you want earthy Mosaic is the rage as well as Simcoe, two peas in a pod kinda hop, cat pissy sometimes , but better blended. You want a hint of like oranges and tangerine you have Centennial hops and brews like Founders Centennial, Two Hearted Ale, Racer 5.

You can't beat Two Hearted Ale for a great IPA that is consistent, easy to get, and not over the top in any direction, maybe your pop would like to try something so simply good. Because it's so common and so good it's sells fast and it's usually fresh.

 

Try Rubicon IPA and Deschutes Inversion, as well as Anderson Valley Hop Ottin' IPA. All a bit more structured and wile bitter, they have a nice malt backbone to balance them out.

 

Despite the many suggestions above for UK or "UK style" IPA's, there was nothing vaguely similar between the classic Ballantine India Pale Ale and what today's beer geekery calls an "UK IPA"

*Sure Peter Ballantine came from Scotland - in the 1820s. Not much Scot-influence by the post-Repeal era, even if they had a Scottish-born brewmaster, who had previously worked in both Burton-on-Trent and in Canada for Molson, in the 1930s. And he was probably the creator of the post-Repeal Ballantine IPA just as he was for the flagship XXX Ale.)

Depending on how many "decades ago" your father drank BIPA, of course, but the iconic Newark-brewed IPA (until 1972) was said to be 6.5 - 7.8% abv and 45-60 ibu's (sources - all secondary - vary). The brewery used American-grown hops for its ales - Bullion and the related Brewer's Gold - both in the kettle and for dry-hopping and, additionally, added distilled hop oil. The ale was long aged for a year - thus the use of hop oil - but the burst of freshness that today's IPA drinker craves was not a desired quality at the time. BIPA was more bitter than fragrantly "hoppy" and what fragrance there was and the predominant hop flavor would be described today as "pine-y". There was also a touch of alcoholic sweetness in its aftertaste.

After '72, the brand was brewed by Falstaff and then by Pabst (both eventually being owned by the S&P Corp.) and went through a two decade long dumbing down, disappearing with the closing of the Milwaukee Pabst brewery in '96. Aging time lowered, abv and ibu reduced, etc. The hops were changed to Brewers Gold and American Yakima and the hop oil dropped (instead the hops were ground/pulverized). So, just as the IPA beer style was being revived in the US by the early craft brewers (Anchor, Sierra Nevada, Grant) the last surviving IPA was going in the other direction.

The beer that always reminds me (I make no claim of similar hopping, etc) is Sierra Nevada Celebration Ale. That might just be because SNCA came along in the mid-80's, just as BIPA was going downhill. Sometimes Victory HopDevil (as it fades as it approaches it shelf life) will also bring it to mind.

I suppose any "piney" hopped IPA might be worth a try. I'd also suggest first "blending" any modern US IPA with a more "neutral" beer (such as either un-lightstruck Ballantine Ale or Chesterfield Ale) to cut the bitterness at first. Just as folks build up a tolerance to bitterness, they will certainly lose it after decades of drinking adjunct lager or light beers.

 

You know full well what I mean. It's all about balance IMO , if you want a hint or suggestion of grapefruit (or cloves or bananas or pine etc) that's fine. But to let these flavours take centre stage is a different matter.
I enjoy an occasional IPA which suggests grapefruit.But I will surely move onto something else after that.It's a case of as well as not instead of.As a change of flavour , fine.But I want more from my beer drinking.

 

Many beers feature a prominent flavour, some may have grapefruit. Where's the issue? You don't have to like it if you don't but there's no need to slam people's taste.

 

I would suggest Cisco Indie Pale Ale. It has a nice hop bite but is missing the Pine/Citrus notes (that I like in an IPA).

 

Goose island is a grapefruit bomb, and stay away from modus hoperandi, it tastes like grapefruit wrapped in weed.

I would step over and give him a boulevard pale ale or deschutes mirror pond. They aren't ipa as we know them, but they may be more of what he is lookiing for.

 

Nothing really reminds me today of the mid-70's Ballantine India Pale Ale (which by the 1980's was using some Cascades, hard as it may be to believe) - including the restored but resolutely modern Ballantine IPA released last year by Pabst.

If I did a blend to recreate it, it might be a mix of a traditional English pale ale and a pale ale with a fir or pine-cone-like scent from an added essence of some kind, maybe spruce. I wouldn't use C-hops or that type because they have a "white pith" flavor which I don't recall from Ballantine IPA in its prime. True, Cascade hops was used towards the end, but it didn't give the beer a citric taste, not in any way comparable to the avatar that SNPA is, say, or Liberty Ale.

I can't conceal my disappointment at the new Ballantine IPA - the fact that it is a fine beer on its own terms makes it all harder, er, to swallow. But that's me.

 

I agree about GI IPA but Honker's is much less so, not really English but a softer all round approach.