Tired Hands (November 2016)

I saw that the other day and this picture is making me salivate. How is it only 10:30am still? Damn office.

 

I don't think it was a shot at the consumer, more of addressing the whole hazy beer, who is copying who type thing. They are just having fun.

 

I don't know if it's true, but I have heard that adding flour to beer can shorten the "fresh" life of a beer. Maybe one of the home brewers can confirm if that is true?

 

I think some beers marketed as "Session IPAs" (a label I think is stupid) are very similar, just not opaque. Dominate hop aroma, mild bitterness, no malt flavor, thin watery body.

 

Definitely don't agree with that.

 

The 'challenge' of having residual starch in beer (the addition of flour provides starch) is that any unwanted microorganisms in the beer will view that starch as food and create off-flavors.

So, basically the issue is how well was the sanitation process during the brewing of the beer.

Needless to say but if the beer is consumed quickly (e.g., a couple-few weeks post packaging) then there is really nothing to worry about. It takes some time for the bacteria's effects to create perceptible off-flavors.

In my homebrewing practice I would never add starch but I also do not consume all of my beers quickly (i.e., in less than a month).

Cheers!

 

So they say they only add flour to their Milkshakes, but it doesn't say they "don't" add flour to their other beers. I wonder...

 

I guess someone needs to sneak a hidden camera in there and get to the bottom of this controversy.

 

Unless I'm mis-reading it, doesn't saying they only add flour to their milkshakes imply that they don't add it to anything else?

 

I don't really care what they put in the beer. It tastes good. So I drink it. The end.

 

Seriously?

 

Which part(s) of my description?

 

That some of the widely available "session" ales are similar in any way in flavor to the hazy, juicy, hop forward Tired Hands IPAs. And "thin watery body" certainly does not describe a Tired Hands IPA.

 

"hazy"? If two beers have similar aroma, taste, mouthfeel - then why do you care? this hazy thing as a positive attribute alone is bizarre.

"juicy"? There are plenty of beers that use hop varieties like Citra, Amarillo, Mosaic, Galaxy, etc that give citrus and tropical fruit aroma and flavors.

I've had HopHands, Alien Church, and Punge, and I'd say they all had very little body to them. All similar in that I enjoyed the hop aroma, the flavor was okay, but the mouthfeel was lacking. Something I find in almost all of the so-called Session IPAs that I've tried.

 

Okay then, what is a session beer that you think is on par in body and flavor profile to something like Alien Church or Punge?

 

Well that's not really an endorsement - but I rated these fairly similarly in the last year- Fat Head's Sunshine Daydream, SingleCut 18-Watt, Two Roads Lil Heaven, Iron Hill's Crusher, Ballast Point Even Keel.

I am having Deja Vu to another Tired Hands argument about preferred "shelf" IPA's - but I can't find the post I made with the list. It must have been in the original canning thread which now for some reason got nuked from the database??
https://www.beeradvocate.com/community/threads/tired-hands-to-can.364330/

But off the top of my head - of widely available beers I'd rather drink- OB Dale's / Deviant Dale's / G'Knight, Dogfish 90 min, Voodoo Good Vibes, Green Flash West Coast, Stoudts Double IPA, Half Acre Daisy Cutter, Neshaminy JAWN. If Nugget Nectar was available year round it'd be a constant in my fridge.

 

None of those beers are all that similar to Alien Church or Punge, are they?... completely different styles of IPA.

 

My first list - fairly, based on the characteristics I was previously describing. Hop aroma at the expense of everything else (malt / body) in the beer.

The second list - no, but they are hoppy beers I'd rather drink for half the price of Tired Hands IPAs.

 

I was referring to the first list. I wouldn't put AC or Punge anywhere near the crisp, clean category of session IPAs that Sunshine Daydream and Even Keel inhabit. The only similarity between them, that I can think of, is the lack of a malt backbone. Everything else from the body to the flavor to the complexity is incredibly different.

 

I see that as the defining characteristic- little to offer me besides hop aroma. No malt flavor, not much hop bitterness either. And thin bodied, which combined with low carbonation I get a watery mouthfeel. I haven't had any Tired Hands beers from a can so I don't know if their carbonation is the same as on draft/growler.