Favorite Colorado IPAs?

I myself would rather have a balanced portfolio in my brewery as opposed to "that one amazing IPA". You guys are so nuts for that ONE amazing style of beer made locally but I think we have some fantastic IPAs (Odell IPA/Myrc, Comrade, S26, Backcountry) and the best part of those breweries is that they do juuuuust about everything very well and usually fantastic. I'll take that any day over "that one flavor of the month IPA".

Here's to keeping our little flyover state and it's awesome beers just that. You wanna go ballistic for whatever hop bomb the coast-biased rankings wanna say is the new hotness? Be my guest. I'll be at Comrade.

 

I just want to re-iterate this. I know Comrade has been getting a ton of love for Superpower, but I'll be damned if Station 26 isn't killing the hoppy game. That Juicy Banger IPA they made was off the charts.

 

Thirded. S26 makes the shit out of hoppy beers. Now if only they could move...

 

It's just a matter of people wanting what they don't have. Unless you're in the midwest. Then they'll claim it's world class so they can overvalue it in a trade. I kid...I kid...kind of.
Sometimes I wonder if Oregon has to deal with this sort of thing.

 

Haha, the homerism is real. You've heard that almost all trends start at the coasts and move centrally, right? What if the IPAs that Comrade, S26, Backcountry, etc. are making are just the type of IPAs that the coasts have had for years?

Flyover state? Denver is one of the fastest growing cities in the country.

And every single nationwide poll is going to be east coast/California biased. It's very simple. There's more people.

 

I lived in Portland for 12 years before moving here a couple of years ago. I never recall wanting what I couldn't have because we had it all Also, being a NW cynic, we under-hyped everything local.

 

I don't really know if you're arguing or agreeing with me, but regardless. Yes I know how trends work. I'm not saying West Coast IPAs haven't been around for many more years than CO has been making them. The flyover state thing was tongue in cheek but go to either coast and ask about CO... that's not a joke. They really do think this. And yeah I know how polls and population density work. I think you're saying the same thing as me? I don't get it haha.

 

I'll put super power and hop chops up against most ipa's brewed in the U.S. right now. But again to piggy back on others, the fact that they are draft only makes it hard for the rest of the country to truly appreciate it. I'm ok with that though, let everyone else stand in line for hours in Vermont to get heady... I'll wait 30 seconds for my growler fill of superpower

 

I've heard that is more on the sour side, no?

 

Colorado has tons of quality IPA's, IMO, though one could definitely argue the amount of "great" IPA's are much more select. I don't think Colorado is leader in the IPA field, but Colorado also isn't a bad IPA state either. For me, as long as fresh Odell Myrcenary and IPA are on the shelves I think Colorado is well represented on the IPA front. Others I am sure could argue for the stuff from Avery, Oskar Blues, Ska, Great Divide, Backcountry, etc. And I am not even addressing the unpackaged offerings.

If you want IPA's showcasing the new, more modern hops, Colorado and its packaged offerings probably isn't going to impress you.

 

Yeah, it is a Brett IPA.

 

I have. I'm not a huge fan of Toppling Goliath. They're good, but I think they're more akin to "good for where they're located." Zombie Dust is absolutely a great beer. Backcountry's DIPA is actually quite similar (hop-profile wise). Superpower is also somewhat similar. Ditto with S26's Citra and some of their other IPA's that contain a large % of citra hops like LowDown and Cannonball Creek. Zombie Dust is what it is because it was the first major retail/packaged IPA to use tons of citra. It's still great, but I don't think it's exactly the flagship for citra beers anymore. It's just the one people know.

We 100% *do not* have anything akin to the New England IPA's. Nothing. Then again, neither does any other region of the country. They don't distro either. So that's a moot point. We're talking about a single type of one style that's isolated to one pocket of the country that no other region has or can get. I might as well make the claim that we have no good lagers because we don't have any Franconian Ungespundet Kellerbier. I think those beers absolutely kick ass, but c'mon.

 

I'll make the claim that "Todd The Axeman" will be the new flagship Citra brew once they start canning it

 

This whole thing just comes down to "how come no CO breweries do an all-Citra IPA?"

There have been a couple, but nothing at any large scale. I know Citra was really hard to get your hands on for a while, no idea if that's still true.

 

I think we tend to do that here, under-hype our stuff. If Toppling Goliath or FFF made Odell IPA it would be universally acclaimed throughout the midwest and, thereafter, from people on both coasts outside the distro, as the finest IPA imaginable.

 

We do overhype everything from Avery though

 

Breckenridge 471
Great Divide Titan
Trve Tunnel of trees

 

Until they started making "too much" of everything. Lousy breweries not factoring in how important rarity is in the beer world.

 

Generally I agree, however, Avery Maharaja has no citra in it but I would classify it as more of a progressive IPA that I'd like to see more of. (I enjoy a bottle of Maharaja just as much as Pliny or Heady Topper). I don't think it has to be a Citra IPA to be a good IPA. Freshness and a lot of hops in the nose are part of it for me at least.