NC's Best Drinking IPAs/ DIPAs

Anyone get a chance to try Trophy Hop Shake or Cloud Surfer? They look tasty...

https://twitter.com/Trophybrewing/status/722882402964508673

http://trophybrewing.com/hop-shake/

http://trophybrewing.com/cloud-surfer/

 

Cloud Surfer was awesome as I noted above. I'm not a huge fan of Hop Shake, but a lot of other people are.

 

I've always had a good time at WW. You just have to know when to go, and busy isn't so bad anyway. Things never stay the same and I'm glad for WW's success. They've worked hard, brew great beer, and they've earned it. I drive in from Greensboro, have loved Asheville for many years, but I'm still a paltry tourist. But, you know, things just always used to be better before all those "uninitiated" showed up........Asheville was cool as a run down town and it's still doing OK. Cheers!

 

New batch of Teacher's Pet is in that cloudy/juicy style. It was already a great beer, this new batch is even greater if that's your bag like it is mine.

 

The label also doesn't feature the month of the beer anymore, so if you see 3 sitting on the shelf, you have no idea which is the most current unless you're keeping up with the releases. Not being able to easily identify which one is the freshest has stopped me from buying them. The bottles don't appear to be dated either.

 

I want to say it was called the topaz pale ale And was released in March. The first two were pilsners I think.

 

That could work, but we're not camping, we're way too old for that shit

We did the consider it dan condo package at Wintergreen, so I think we'll be popping tops on the bus to the fest and then at the condo, but if I can get my one friend to mule in beers on his RV, then that could be expanded, but then I need a VIP pass to get into VIP RV area, and hoping my video and LED buddy is working the fest again, his production company handles Lock'n, but it will depend on Dead and Co tour in August and how far that extends, if he is on for Lock'n, then I'll get an all access pass, which will allow me to go anywhere at the fest, which would rule.

List of bottles I'm bringing for sure, Cocoa ANTEAD, Resolute, maybe a coconut resolute, Apple Brandy Resolute, Fremont Abominable, Fremont Dark Star, and I'm sure there will be more...gonna be a shitshow.

 

If you're down Wilmington way, Wilmington Brewing Company's Midtown Swank (IPA) and Sneaky Goose (IIPA) are both solid. Be careful with the Sneaky Goose... you'd never know that its 9.6%.

 

That was the problem Foothills had with the IPA of the Month series. Whenever the new month came out, folks would stop buying the previous month's IPA. The idea wasn't for an "Enjoy By" series, but that's how everyone seemed to interpret the IPAotM beers. With HotM, Foothills is aiming for folks to be more likely to buy bottles after the month they're released.

The releases so far have been (in order): Wakatu (Vienna Lager), Mandarina (Pilsner), Topaz (Pale ale), and Kazbek (Pilsner). They ran out of their Topaz pale (March) before the first two beers.

 

I had Hop Shake back in late January. Thought it was an interesting flavor and pretty good overall, but not something I would enjoy more than a pint of at a time.

 

I hear ya, but I mean they are IPA's after all, so why would someone want to buy last month's when a fresher one is available? Personally I'm not buying any local IPA that's a month old period, not when there's fresher ones to be had at least.

 

Their loss. I used to buy them religiously, now I'll just let them rot on the shelf.

 

The "month old" thing is a pretty good rule of thumb for smaller, local breweries, but the bigger guy's IPAs will generally hold up a little better. I had a 6 month old Pinner from Oskar Blues not too long ago and it still had a decent nose and hop flavor. Pretty sure it had been stored cold though. Most beers don't get that luxury.

 

Yeah I'd agree with that. And I mean I'm not saying anything over a month old sucks and I'll never drink it. But lately I can pretty much always find something that's fresher than that, so I just don't have a need to. Between local breweries like Trophy and Lynnwood and stuff like Pernicious, Burial cans, and some of the bigger guys like Lagunitas, I can generally find something that's within 3 weeks old.

 

I know this makes me a bad person, but after buying almost every IPAotM (March '14 - Dec '15), I haven't bought any bottles of the HotM series. I've had most of them on tap, and they're okay, but it isn't the must-buy that the IPAotM beers were.

Also of note for Triad folks, Potent Potables posted this picture a couple of hours ago. Kegged on Thursday, tapped at PoPo Friday night.

 

I didn't think any of the IPA of the Month series stood out. They tended to be "too balanced" for my taste.

 

I thought a few of them were really good, although I can't really remember which specific ones (basically the higher abv ones). But I pretty much always thought they were worth the $6 a bomber or whatever they were.

 

Hop Burglar is pretty meh IMO.