Paste's 247 IPAs Blind-Tasted and Ranked

It's awesome to see Prison City get the recognition they deserve. Ben is making some killer beer up there in Auburn, and, IMO, IPAs aren't even his strongest suit. His sours are absolutely world class, as well.

 

I just had treehouse green a week ago and i can see the big deal finally. Good for them.

 

Hell yeah prison city! Love having a world class joint less than 1 hour away. Ben is a great dude and super psyched as I've had the pleasure of him providing very positive blind feedback on my homebrews in the past.

 

I'm not much of a fan of ranking articles, but the amount of coordination and work that go into something like this is nuts! Not a bad job to have.

 

Interesting list. I think they do a pretty good job with these. Surprised by some that are ranked high. Definitely want to try that Prison City brew!

 

These Paste lists are consistently well written, well thought, and well executed. I like that they disclose conflicts (i.e. some of these beers are fresher than others, etc.), and have a rigorous judging criteria.

I was reading an interview with Greil Marcus, in which either he or the interviewer made a distinction between Marcus's Real Life Top Tens lists and Buzzfeed listicles, with the former basically being articles in list clothing and the latter being insubstantial brain farts in list form (maybe editorializing the exact language here). This is case in point to me. Really good work, Paste!

 

Paging @cavedave on an Upstate New York Brewery capturing that number one spot.

 

Congrats to Ben and the guys at Prison City! And to Grimm for making sure NY grabs 3 of the top 10 spots.

 

The riot in "x" beers have been incredible. Like treehouse/trillium/hill farmstead with out the hype. I wouldn't drink anything else if it ever got canned...hint hint

 

From the article: “And here we finally are—the 25 best beers we tasted out of a group of 247 freakin’ IPAs. Suffice to say, an insane amount of time and effort went into all the daily tastings. They stretched through weeks, as some tasters—big surprise—grew very tired of IPA. Some even took days off, to keep their palates fresh.”

Hats off to the beer reviewers! That was indeed a lot of work!!

Cheers!

 

Big ups to brew gentlemen they have been making some great beers and glad to see them get some recognition

 

Hell yeah, haven't tried any Prison City beers yet, but hardly surprised New York brewers are liked so well. Definitely will be on the lookout for Mass Riot. I can easily think of ten more NY IPA that likely would have scored well in blind tests.

 

Distribution. Sigh. I drink a lot of beer... but haven't had any from this particular top 25.

 

You inspired me to do my own count. I live in Southeastern PA which has pretty good distribution and I have only had four beers of the top 25.

Yup, distribution is an 'issue' here but perhaps that might be sort of a 'good thing' for a beer style like IPA? By keeping the beers local (e.g., Treehouse, Trillium, Grimm, etc.) maybe this helps from a beer freshness perspective? Maybe the future of hoppy beers are lots of breweries producing high(er) quality products and restricting distribution to ensure freshness?

I was grocery shopping earlier today and I considered buying some Firestone Walker Union Jack beer but it was several months old and too 'old' for my standards. Having wide distribution but old(er) product is not a good thing IMO.

Cheers!

 

Those 4 beers you mentioned aren't IPAs but Pale american milds.

 

This may very well be a defining characteristic of NE IPA. I have had 11 of the top 25, and only 4 of them were obtained 'in distribution'.

I do wonder if we're in for a bit of a paradigm shift. If everyone had a Tree House within 20 miles, there'd be less beer travelling and some of the nationwide breweries might be in a bit of an overextended trouble.

 

if everyone had treehouse/ Tired hands/ Bissel Bros/ whatever others they would all be 2 month old within 20 miles.

 

To do list:

1. Open brewery
2. Brew unfiltered IPA with some combination of citra, mosaic, and galaxy hops
3. Submit to blind tasting
4. PROFIT

 

I agree that is too old for Union Jack, but if they ever get the distribution end nailed down I'd take that beer over any of the others, without a second of hesitation.