Doesnt matter. If youre going to pick 1 IPA to represent the state why would you pick something obscure over the one everyone knows ? That reeks of pretentiousness. Titled Barn has lots of IPAs so why is this one they picked the best ? Plus, the one they picked from Tilted Barn has a 97 BA score and Captains Daughter has a 96 so its not a huge gap. They just wanted to be cute and pick something more obscure and less known. For other states they did pick the big known popular IPA btw and for others they did not. Very inconsistent there.
Hmmm. Well, since this list includes IPAs of all ABV levels, first I’d say that Kane Overhead and Ripple are both tastier than Head High. Magnify Low Visibility. Pretty much every IPA from Conclave, starting with Gravitational Waves. Probably any IPA from Troon, even though they’re hard to get. Carton 077XX. Many new ones from Oakflower, Esker Hart and Autodidact. Not a knock on Head High. Like I said, I enjoy it, but so many delicious IPAs in NJ these days.
Lol. Just checked fridge, and my reviews... Overhead is indeed my current ' best NJ IPA'!! Was blown away. Very Heady-friendly. I said it was BEST IPA this side of Green Mountains. Liked the 077xx. Seen some Conclave. Will continue to explore. Cheers
I think they have their own distro company (or I'm confusing them with another Seattle brewery), so I kinda thought you'd at least see a little of everything. I thought maybe it was a rotator, but it's not even listed on their site: https://reubensbrews.com/beers-in-store/
The NJ IPA scene has indeed been pretty amazing. Years ago I didn't give it much credit past Troon, to me Magnify/Icarus were always just okay and Kane was more for the stouts, but since discovering the Autodidact/Oakflower/Conclave group I'm sold on them having close to a top-tier starting lineup. I gotta add Bakes to that list as well, definitely on that same level. Only had one from Esker Hart but made a great impression.
I have no problem with Perpetual being the "standout" IPA for Pa. Available everywhere, consistent quality.
I think it's Fast Fashion that has set up their own distro company. That's how PtE is now regularly found around here.
I have had Lift Off a couple of times while visiting Indiana, and I wasn't blown away by it. Not a bad beer, but it definitely doesn't stand up to many of the Three Floyds offerings
Agree minus sip of sunshine. But how is the Vermont answer not heady I mean cmon. I scrolled down to V to confirm what I was 99.9% sure was going to be there, and it wasnt.
That comparison that I did in post #50 using a Vinepair list from last year shows that Three Floyds Permanent Funeral was the top dog then.
Really easy to find in Vermont too, so it's not like availability could be an excuse. Heady is like water in Vermont.
Well, because I would think the #1 IPA would be the one that tastes the "best". I realize that is subjective.
CO's is Juicy Bits. I don't disagree with that necessarily. It's high profile and it IS good. I don't think it's going to be the geeky favorite (that would probably be Comrade, Westbound, or Cannonball), but like 20x more people have tried Juicy Bits vs. IPAs from those places. NM went with Project Dank, which I think is a pretty fine choice. Yes, it's a fairly common beer, but it's a favorite of serious hop hounds and more casual drinkers, too. The beers winning NM's IPA challenge tend to have a pretty small footprint, so you can't really count those.
