Triple IPA?

I like big malty beers as well - just not any that you listed above except for Hi-Res, which I think tastes very different from the rest.

I am aging a couple bottles of Devil Dancer to see how they taste a few years down the road. Maybe I'll have a different take on it then.

 

Was astonished that HI Res was a triple it certainly did not taste like it! Had Pliny the Younger last year and I can see the triple in that

 

To me there's no triple IPA. It's either IPA or double IPA. Triple IPA are really just double IPA.

 

I agree 100%- Fresh is amazing, 6 months old makes you wonder how you ever liked it in the first place.

 

The only beer I've had so far that could potentially constitute as a triple IPA is Sierra Nevada's Hoptimum, which tastes pretty awesome. However, I don't like my IPAs to taste boozy, so the idea of an IPA over 11% doesn't appeal to me. I still have yet to try Hi-Res, though, which I hear is good.

 

What about a tripel IPA?

 

To me, A beer marketed as a Triple IPA means:
"youre only going to have one beer tonight"
>10% and hopped so hard it makes you tired and fall asleep

 

I've had most of the ales mentioned in the thread within the past year or so, with the exception of DFH's 120 Minute and Dark Horse Double Crooked Tree (DCT), both of which were a couple of years ago.

So here's my essay...

Molotov came off sweeter and thicker than Devil Dancer (DD), and with more deep tropical fruit flavors, and less "savory" flavors (sometimes described as onion/garlic flavor (but I don't receive it that way; other BAs have)). Green Bullet (GB), on the other hand, is a much leaner, crisper, tighter beer - the abv is there, but it drinks more like a DIPA. Bear in mind, too, that DD is an amber ale - possibly more akin to a Double Bastard than most pale TIPAs.

Simtra and Hoparillo are denser/sweeter and maltier than GB, but less so than Molotov, and also less fruity. They are most similar to DFH's 120 Minute, as far as palate memory serves, being both big in the malts and hops, while retaining a pale complexion. DCT was closer to Molotov than 120 Minute, again, if I recall right. And Hi-Res, also cited a couple of times, is close to GB overall, but fruitier, while still remaining somewhat lean.

Tripel Hop ales from Duvel (DTH) and Piraat (PTH) were a different experience, and tended to have a much thinner body, more carbonation, and a more distinct Belgian styling. They are more about the hops being featured, rather than shooting for that big, over-the-top American hop/malt bomb action. The DTH, for example, is just slightly stronger than regular Duvel, and is named as such because it literally features three hops (different featured hop each year). Don't recall if the same is exactly true of PTH, but it was still similar to the standard Piraat, but with a twist on the typical flavor profile and a slightly elevated abv.

Cheers, all

 

I love Creeper!!!!
While I haven't had this one yet, Kuhnhenn TRIPA. But their DRIPA awesome. Looking forward to get a chance of TRIPA.

 

Triple IPA's will someday be their own style. Don't be afraid of a new style/category name, at one time nothing had a name. Just don't call a Barleywine a IIIPA!

 

I will happily call a iiipa a barleywine though. Or perhaps an American barleywine, cos... hops.

 

No mention of Alpine's Exponential Hoppyness

 

IMHO there is an existing style (quad, barleywine, etc) that these already fall into, and triple IPA is just a marketing thing.

 

This is an often repeated myth. For commercial brewers who can buy their raw materials in bulk the cost of a little extra malt to ferment a little more alcohol is an almost negligable expense compared to other fixed costs of a brewery (i.e. bottling/canning/kegging, distribution, marketing, paying employees, taxes, electricity, water, lease/purchase of space, QA/QC, equipment maintenance, business investments, etc., which are all independent of a beer's ABV).

Exactly. Too many people confuse innovation with creatively renaming old concepts.

Consider this... What would you call an american barleywine that happened to use pale malts?

 

I never know if people are tongue in cheek with this "IIIPAs are just barleywines with a different name" ... but it doesn't take much thought to dispense of that idea as a hollow quip.

I'm no brewer but my understanding is that a barleywine will have a much longer boil than a IIIPA (and probably a lot of other different differences in brewing), use different hops (e.g. Pelican uses Hersbrucker in their excellent Stormwatcher barleywine ... though, granted, that's an English style BW), and use the hops differently. I really can't imagine a citra+simcoe forward barleywine. I'm hard pressed to think of an American barleywine that could pass for a IIIPA. They're generally much darker, with only the lightest end of BWs and the darkest end of IIIPAs getting into the amber terrain, and more viscous (probably due to lower carbonation on the BWs). Flavors almost always have bittersweet toffee, caramel, vanilla, dark fruits. Having consumed MANY triple IPAs - we have a fest here in Seattle with 40+ local IIIPAs and I've had all the big name brews - I've rarely seen much overlap. Curious how many are available in the UK fresh?

A quad seems like a weird suggestion since they're dark and sweet with low bitterness ... with flavors driven greatly by the Belgian yeast; if you can convince someone a IIIPA is a quad, there's something seriously wrong with that IIIPA or with their understanding of what a quad is.

 

Fegley's Hop'solutely says Triple IPA on the bottle
http://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/16096/53962/

 

I'm actually a huge fan of the big knee deeps. Simtra, hoparillo and hop-deranged. I think hop shortage may even be a iiipa. One local to me that hasn't been mentioned is Therapist by Dustbowl. Its good, not great but its representative of the style.

 

I would definitely agree with this statement for last year's batch of PtY. When I had PtY a few years back I felt it was a little better than Notorious. Regardless, they are both delicious!

 

simtra the best one i had. really it's just a very smooth DIPA.

i guess devil dancer and 120 minute really pioneered the style as such. just way over the top. i like them sometimes, but it's not my favorite thing.

 

Take a deep breath and calm the fuck down. You're gonna have an aneurysm.