New England DIPA Showdown

Heady Topper - The Alchemist

Aroma: Blown away by how this beer opened up and filled my nose with pure mango essence. Unmistakably sweet, with a bit of pine and classic hop note. Some have said this has a lot of grapefruit going on, but all i got out of this was mango..not upset by that btw.

Color: Golden orange, unfiltered, thick. Cant see your hand on the other side of the glass, and kinda reminded me of tang.

Taste: Perhaps it was all the hype or anticipation, but I was expecting to get blown away by hops up front, which didn't happen. This beer was wonderfully balanced, starting with a sweet citrus hop flavor, medium on the body and not overhopped imo. It was not heavily carbonated, or that could have been the 8% dipa coating my tongue and leaving the hop resin lingering for minutes until the next sip. As this beer warmed up a bit the boozy came out of it but overall the balance on this thing was great.

Overall: I get why people go nuts for this beer...but let me finish.


Captains Daughter - Grey Sail

Aroma: Dank hops. Pine, Funk. It has a little citrus smell, but damn, the hops are in your face.

Color: Unfiltered, Lemon haze. Looks resemble a hogaarden, but let's not get side-tracked here. Light frothy head that dissipated a little but left nice lacing on the glass as this beauty went down.

Taste: Hop-heads dream. Definitely a DIPA, but the 8.5% is well masked by hop resin, with a nice clean citrus backbone, a little on the sweet end when left to room temperature, and again thats when the booze comes out. A little bit more on the bubbles here, which I find nicer for mouth feel. Astringent on the back end, leaving me a little dried out between drinks.

Overall: This beer was canned on 3/10/15 and it tasted like it just got pulled out of the fermenter. Dangerously easy to drink. This is a homerun for Grey Sail putting them in the mix for great beers, at least dipas.


My feelings are as such.. Reading this you can see that both of these beers are quality. Heady Topper is famous in its own right, although I think the hype and rareness of it kinda let me down as I was anticipating a completely different experience than I had. I no way do I mean I didn't enjoy it, because from the review you can see that the balance and perfection of this DIPA is well received. However, for what I look for in my ipas, I found the Captains Daughter to be much more enjoyable. I felt the up front and a little unbalanced hoppyness cut through the boozyness a little better than the heady topper. I'm not being bias because I live in Rhode Island, just personal opinion and we are all entitled to them. If it was a little more accessible in the beer isle, I would probably rate the heady a little better..but considering it the holy grail of dipas, I don't know. I would totally run right out to buy more if I could, but since that's not an option, the CD will do just fine for occupying my palate. Cheers.

 

Get me a ghandi-bot and ill provide the daughter

 

I know there will be more that agree with you as well, like i said at the recap, its all personal preference. As far as class is concerned..it was a matchup of new england dipas.

 

Absolutely, I'm waiting on some ghandi-bot from a friend in CT, when I get my hands on that I will have to find something somewhat comparable so I don't get another lashing like I did from the heady fans. Everythings subjective but I do enjoy doing the side by sides so stay tuned.

 

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