Blind IPA/IIPA Taste Test

This is my take as well. Haven't had HDR but I've had 2 of each Heady, Pliny, and Blind Big. I thought Blind Pig was, at best, an average IPA. Heady was very, very good but not #1. Pliny was good but not even a top 15 IPA for me.

 

Pliny>HT>HDR>BP. Once you've had Pliny on tap at RR...you understand that a month makes a difference in the bottle.

 

Someone is pouring and will know.

 

I'm going to do a PtE, Blind Pig, Heady, and one more blind taste test here next week. very anxious to try this!

 

Hugely surprising for me.

 

One of the reasons I am such a fan of Uinta, Sixpoint, and Odell is because we have done a ton of blind taste tests of their IPAs/IIPAs and they continue to impress, regardless of the taster. These really are amazingly flavorful beers. In the case of the IPAs, they are clean, charged and ripe, like a freshly scrubbed prom date that just got into her dress. With the IIPAs, they are rich, layered and shmexy, like a slightly tipsy cougar with a gym-perfect body, that buys you a drink at the bar while signalling her limo driver to bring the car around.
Ahem.
Just saying that you don't necessarily have to hunt down a limited/regionally available/$20 a bottle bragging right to still have one of the best IPA/IIPA experiences.

 

Blind tastings are like any of the other ways we have of knowing, of learning something, or of understanding the world. There are strengths and weaknesses to each and which way of learning, knowing, or understanding should be used depends in part on the question being asked and upon a clear sense of what can and can not be learned, known, or understood using that menthod of discovery and analysis.

Specifically, in doing sensory evaluation blind tastings can not give us all the answers, but they can help us to reduce the effects of irrelevant factors that can influence human judgment of quality (e.g., above a particular price point, the knowledge of the price paid for a bottle of wine or beer can have a greater impact on the sensory evaluation of even trained judges than is justified by the quality of the contents of the bottle). Similarly, the perception of rarity can have comparable effects.

In other words, because the world is in large part an ambiguous place we have to provide some of the structure ourselves, and what we believe to be true can sometimes lead us to "find" or "believe" things that don't actually exist or that are not true in the external world. Blind tastings are a tool that can help reduce or eliminate the effects of such things.

 

Nice selection of palate wipeout. One of them will basically be wasted.

 

I've had all 4 and think each one to be excellent. Preference is subjective at best, not to mention all sorts of potential variables that might be lurking about. Until recently I've been able to get HDR regularly just 2 days after canning. This is a great beer that is hugely satisfying. To me, that is the quest: which beer do you savor sip for sip and contemplate exactly why it is so satisfying? I look forward to the results of this tasting!

 

That wasn't my point.

 

Darwin, I think you're a cool guy - so don't take this personally, but do you think it's a little premature to make declarations of "best" and "favorite beer in the world" after only trying a beer at a tasting and then having a few sips alongside two other beers? I'm sure you spent a good deal of time with those beers after the camera stopped rolling, and maybe you've had Double Sunshine multiple times since and it confirmed your feelings in the video, but isn't the moral of your video that one shouldn't put too much faith in black and white thinking?

 

Am I the only person that was not at all impressed with Hop Drop n Roll.... was happy to be able to try it but didn't amount to anything better than average to me.

 

L

Great review. I like watching your videos. Good beers, good palate and they the right length. Cheers!

 

Very much appreciated. Thanks!!

 

You can't drink HT from the can (as recommended) and do it blind.

 

Yes

 

I love HT as in love it, but honestly could really flip a coin (HDR) to which one I have a preference for. HDR is a bitch to get right now, I have to drive to Charlotte. I'd go dead tie at 1st, HT/HDR/ Blind Pig/ Pliny. Flip the RR stuff if Pliny is under 15 days old. The best part with HDR is when I get it's it's 3 days old, can't beat fresh.

 

Why not?