Paste 324 IPAs blind tasted

Had both Great Notion IPAs on the list last weekend in Portland and I actually preferred their Juice Jr over the two that were submitted. Also went to Breakside and had the Tall Guy IPA and liked that one more than any Great Notion IPA. But, my taste in IPAs lean much more classic west coast.

 

Well that's real great - out of 324 IPAs, they couldn't get my absolute favorite IPA into the contest, Revision IPA, which just recently won 2018 World Beer Cup. Might want to include something like that.

 

I guess I need to drink more blindfolded because Offshoot's Relax wasn't even the 2nd best beer of the night the times I had it.

 

The reason this beer was not taste tested is because the Paste Magazine folks did not receive this beer from them. Do you know anybody at Revision Brewing? Maybe you could reach out to them and encourage them to proactively be part of the next iteration of the Paste Magazine IPA taste testing.

FWIW I had the pleasure of drinking a Revision Tahoe Hazy and I thought that beer was very good. I discussed this beer in a New Beer Sunday thread:

https://www.beeradvocate.com/community/threads/new-beer-sunday-week-667.549112/#post-5763909

Cheers!

@GreenKrusty101

 

I hope I'm not an outlier, but I actually really liked this ranking article given its comprehensiveness and, more importantly, the fact that the testers had no knowledge of what beers they were drinking.

I take more stock in blind taste tests than ones where testers had pre-knowledge of what beers they were drinking.

 

As do I.

Taste testing 324 IPAs is a daunting task but the fact that all of these beers were tasted blind if a BIG plus from my perspective.

Cheers!

 

I am a big fan of Four Quarters, happy to see a few of theirs make the list, especially making it to #4. Great place to hang out too. I buy a lot of their cans and send a lot to BA friends. Everyone has enjoyed so far!

Being like 3 miles from Foam makes it an even better spot to hit after a few by the lake!

 

I completely agree with you on the sam adams neipa. Great "bang for the buck" beer. I find them locally at $10 a 4 pack on occasion and they are pretty darn good.

There were a couple pleasent surprises on the list like the Long Trail VT ipa at number 25 which is quite enjoyable and also a good "bang for the buck" choice. I've only tried a couple beers by Frost Beerworks but they have been amazing thus far. I think these lists are a fun little distraction and discussion point. Not to mention it's got to be awesome making the list!

 

Totally agree on the VT IPA, great easy drinking brew for the summer and great price point.
Frost makes some great brews, Pony Boy isn't one of theirs that I really enjoy, but nice to see them on the list.

 

These lists are fun, but anyone who has done any judging knows that IPA's are ridiculous to do taste tests like this, since the burnout of palate factor is so high. Back in my serious homebrewing days we always hoped, if we submitted an IPA to be judged, that it would be one of the first ones in the group to be tasted by judges. But 324 of them? God bless their palates after something like that.

 

I'll gladly wreck my palate for a day to taste test 300+ beers for free!
Cheers!

 

I’ve said this before in a Paste list thread but there is literally always an obscure Atlanta area beer ranked in the top 10 of these. I just find that an odd coincidence given where Paste is located.

 

Hometown bias, but I think that's human nature, and freshness probably had an impact there as well. Cheers!

 

Freshness I would accept, but how can there be hometown bias in a blind test?

 

Just to be clear here:

"In it, I’ve tried to capture the distilled perspective one gains about a modern American beer style while blind-tasting 324 of them over the course of 17 days."

These beers were taste tested over a time period of 17 days. Not that 'burn out' can't occur here but drinking over 17 days is significantly different from a homebrewed beer competition which does indeed occur in 1 day.

Cheers!

@cavedave

 

If you have had the same beer a thousand times, even in a blind test you should probably be able to identify it.

 

That's 19 per day. Yikes.

 

Maybe those 19 tastings were distributed among teams? For example team A 'judged' 10 beers and team B 'judged' 9 beers for that given day? And maybe they had more than two teams?

Cheers!

 

I think there's got to be a plateau here. Everyone has figured out how to make a good IPA, and this is a very long list of beers that aren't particularly distinguished from each other.

At this point, it might be more effective to list who isn't capable of producing an IPA worth drinking, because every other local watering hole is giving you what you want these days.

This list is absurdly over the top, and I used to enjoy Paste's lists.

 

I've had

18 unranked
4 ranked

Highest rated is Beer hates astronaut s. This was my favorite new beer of 2017 and I still remember how good it was.

Many of the unranked are very good beers that 10 years ago might have been top 50 beers

Enjoy