NC's Best Drinking IPAs/ DIPAs

Wasn't a fan of the first canning, but I'll give this one a shot. Not a lot of packaged session IPA/light hoppy pale ale options locally.

 

Thanks to this forum, in July my wife and I discovered Heist IPA’s. We were familiar with other styles of IPA’s, but not the hazy, juicy, fruit forward versions from Heist. Throughout the summer, we have enjoyed all of their releases via can, crowler and on tap. Reading these boards, it became clear that some believed these IPA’s were of the same or similar quality to the vaunted Tree House and Trillium beers. Since we enjoyed this style so much, we even considered a quick holiday to MA to try these beers out.

Recently I was able to obtain some Tree House Julius and Trillium Congress St. Within days, Heist announced the release of cans of Citraquench’l and Thirst. So it was time to finally see, according to our tastes, how they all compared.

It would be a blind tasting (single blind for me) and double blind for the other three participants. Disclaimer, the Julius and Congress St. were now two weeks old and did have one day where they were not on ice. I am not sure if this affected the results but since the Julius is still getting better at 2.5 weeks, I believe the shipping had a minimal impact. Also, the Heist beers were two days old.

First, all four beers looked virtually identical. They were so close in appearance that we wondered if the pourer had made a mistake. All four are truly exceptional beers. The quality level between the four was ridiculously similar and the results would likely come down to personal taste, rather than quality. They were judged on smell, feel, taste and an overall score. The scoring was so close, the winning beer’s score was less than 5% higher than the last place beer (e.g. 68.2 vs. 64.9).

The final result was Heist’s Thirst, Heist’s Citraquench’l, Trillium Congress St and finally Tree House Julius. On this day, we preferred Heist, but all were thoroughly enjoyed by everyone.


Cheers!

 

Heist > tradehouse and equally as good as trillium IMO.

Heist did a collab with Aslin, coconut vanilla dipa was was very good, if you like coconut that is.

 

The Heist IPA's are fantastic and they are deserving of all the praise they're getting, but I'm not quite ready to declare them better than the best IPA makers in the country ha. They've done what 3 canning runs? Let's not get ahead of ourselves.

 

^ No kidding. Seemingly a bit of an over one's skis type of statement.

 

Pernicious, Jade, and Surf Wax are my favorites. Wish they'd come across the line to Knoxville. Cheers all!

 

Pretty excited for Galaxy Ceremonial.

 

Speaking of the 'only 3rd batch of cans'. anyone else's Heist cans overfilled? Mine were so full that it literally spilled out when I cracked the top.

 

I didn't have that occur with the last round of Citraquench'l cans

 

My Heist have overflowed as well, I assumed it was my drunkeness.

 

I am pleasantly surprised by Pisgah Greybeard IPA, really enjoying this one.

 

After two glasses of Long Stride I'm about ready to declare it the best DIPA from NC that I've had. Only the Heist stuff compares to it.

 

Also really like the newest Ceremonial, I am a galaxy fiend and it doesn't disappoint. Really hope Burial makes this one again soon.

 

I drank a few Greybeard cans last night, but found I didn't like it as much as I had in the past. Maybe it was because I had a bad taste in my mouth from the Panthers game...

 

Ha! I must have been close to you at Ridgewood. I was there around 5pm and had a small pour of it. It is damn good, but I'm not a huge Galaxy fan.

 

Have not had this happen with Thirst, Blurred or Citra cans that I've had shipped to me, or handed off...I did have this happen with about half of the Abrasive cans I got last fall and into the winter...happens randomly for other cans that I'm drinking Carton and Kane specifically, but not many of those...

 

Can confirm Long Stride is awesome. Definitely top tier NC hop juice.

 

Yeah it's a legit hazy juice bomb. Definitely the best hoppy beer Bond Brothers has done. An absolute bargain for what they're doing glasses and growlers of it for at Ridgewood too, I almost don't even want to tell people about it so it will last longer.

 

Man have I felt that way a time or two. Don't feel too bad as it is on draft @ BB. Nonetheless, good on ya for your ongoing pioneering efforts and for providing a heads-up!

 

Ha oh I hear ya. I know it's at the brewery, but RW is a lot more convenient for me than there.