Washington Hop Mob

Do people still care about TIPAs?

 

As with everything.

 

I think RR deserves being the gold standard of both double and triple IPAs, but I don't think it's necessary at this point to show that other breweries can also make good ones.

Either way, the return of the Hop Mob means Blimey is back! Slight recipe tweak this year:

Can't wait. The other great thing is Reuben's pushed Gobsmacked back to the seasonal starting in April instead of dropping at the same time as Blimey, so I no longer have to choose between my two favorites.

 

I assume you do, since you opened the topic to read the discussion about them, and then commented.

 

Looking forward to these!

I recently tried Urban Family's Star Death from a can, and it's quite good. NE style TIPA seems like a delicate line, but I think they got it right.

 

This new batch of Star Death has a lower ABV than the earlier batch, too.

 

had star death yesterday and thought it was really well done. urban family does a great job with glassware and pour sizes. love those 4 oz and 6oz pours.

 

a few years ago most local tipas were malt bombs that tasted more like barleywines. Recently in my opinion a lot of breweries have really dialed in the style and a lot of the tipas are great overall beers and taste like a normal ipa/dipa while being around 10% abv or more, I love it. I will be at Brouwers for sure after work on Thursday, WA HOP MOB!!!!

forget Blimey, it is all about Triple Crush!!!
Skookum has had some good tipas, Urban Family has some great ones, Boneyard Notorious, and if you ever get to try Great Notion tiaps they are epic...

 

I do, too--and also in moderation. Does that make me a bad person?

From what little I know (an obligatory caveat for all my posts), they're exceptionally hard, time-consuming, and costly to brew. They require a significant commitment on the part of the brewery that is intrepid enough to brew them. The failures tend to be unmitigated disasters, but the successes, even the moderate ones, can be something truly delicious and memorable. And the best of them are transcendent. To pack all that hop aroma and flavor into a drinkable package which is neither too sweet nor overwhelmed by alcohol and/or fusel is a work of great craftsmanship and art. The style deserves respect, even if you personally don't care for it as much as you used to.

Anyway, regarding the other point, I've had PtE, but not PtY. The former is indeed a Gold Standard for its style, much as I assume the latter is for its. But I respectfully submit this is now mostly true in an historical sense, and as an honorific. These beers were great and cutting-edge more than a decade ago, and they are undoubtedly still great. They paved the way for others, surely, but with all the talent and innovation that have been introduced to the industry ever since, can they really still be the absolute best and a league unto themselves in our market or any other? Perhaps it is better to think of them as one marker of excellence, and an important one, among an ever-growing multitude...

 

I'm an admittedly haze fanboi so take it with a grain of salt, but I'm definitely a fan of the new-age triple IPAs like Urban Family and Structures is doing. Last years Structures Die in Haze won the people's choice award at the Hop Mob event at Brouwers... it was so damn delicious. I kept buying half growlers and drinking it all on work nights... my wife loved that. lol

 

Aslan Megathrust was my fave last year, easily.

 

favs from last were:

Airways Brewing Super Jumbo
Aslan Megathrust
Georgetown Brewing Tank
Seapine Brewing Triple Rainbow
Skookum Brewing Almost Made It
Structures Brewing Die in Haze
and prob others

 

Never change sir.

 

i only like the ones that remind me of barleywines, but honestly i'd rather drink a barleywine.

 

Postdoc took their triple IPA (Hogus Maximus) and barrel-aged it (Hogus Maximum Barriclus) which is always fun to drink... for science. It's fun seeing how it changes, but it's a better beer before hitting the barrel.

Last year they decided to take the triple IPA and keep feeding it sugar until the yeast stopped before sticking it in a barrel for 9 months (Hogus Maximum Extremis). Came out at 14.1% and tasted absolutely nothing like an IPA as you would expect (they classify it as a strong ale). All good fun, but make no mistake about it, I want my triple IPAs to taste like hops.

 

One stop east of the Cascades is hardly a complete Washington road show tho...

 

FTFY.