About a week ago, The Bistro in Hayward held their 13th Annual IPA Festival. If you’re a big fan of the style, this was definitely the festival to be at. There were over 60 IPAs on hand to try; many of which were California-brewed, thus exhibiting a definite “West Coast” flair, but there were a few IPAs from Alaska, Oregon, Montana and Colorado.
Because of prior commitments, we had to leave the festival earlier than usual. That meant I missed hearing which breweries had won the festival this year. More importantly, I was limited as to how many IPAs I could try. Thankfully, Jay Brooks has a list of winners on his blog. I’ll just save you the time and list them here:
- 1st Place: IPAX IPA (Triple Rock)
- 2nd Place: Chico IPA (Sierra nevada Brewing)
- 3rd Place: West Coast IPA (Green Flash Brewing)
- Honorable Mention: Head Hunter IPA (Fat Heads Brewery & Saloon)
- People’s Choice: The Hopfather (Russian River Brewing)
Rodger Davis from Triple Rock brews up some really fabulous beers in Berkeley, it doesn’t surprise me to read he took home the “gold” this year. Here were the beers I managed to sample and my brief notes about each one. Just to give you guys some insight, I knew before hand that I would basically be limited to drinking the 5 drink tickets in hand so I took the time before to pick out which beers i wanted to try and in what order, trying to go from lower IBU to highest. After all, once you drink to a certain IBU threshold, there’s really no going back until your palette’s been reset.
Ale industries, A-Kawi-Awa, 6.7% ABV, 61 IBU,
Colombus/Centennial/Colombus (bittering/flavoring/dry hops)
Grainy, slightly sweet malt backbone with a slightly garlicy, dank hop aroma and flavor. Hop bitterness is medium-high, slightly astringent. Balanced beer.
Russian River, Hopfather, 7% ABV, 68 IBU, CTZ,
Magnum/Centennial, Amarillo/Amarillo, Centennial
Sweet smelling, tropical fruit hop aromas, like guava, with a slight spice and garlic bite. Some citrus. Also balanced but with more hop character. Med-high hop bitterness and astringent.
Drakes, Aroma Prieta, 6.5% ABV 75 IBU,
German Magnum/Citra, Centennial, Chinook/Centennial, Citra, Columbus, Cascade
Hop aroma and flavor is layered. Basil, dank garlic, earthy, rye-like spiciness, guava notes throughout. Malt is enough for balance. Hop bitterness is medium-high/high, lasts on the palette. Astringent and dry. Perfumy.
Fatheads Saloon, Head Hunter IPA, 7.3% ABV, 87 IBU,
CTZ, Simcoe/CTS, Simcoe, Centennial/CTZ, Simcoe, Centennial
Slightly sweet, caramel malt character transitions nicely into a perfumy, dank, garlicy, oniony hop flavor and aroma. Nothing rally pops but they all blend well together.
Midnight Sun, Sockeye Red IPA, 5.7% ABV, 70 IBU,
Centennial/Simcoe, Cascade/Simcoe, Cascade
Roasted malt, slight chocolate and caramel flavors. Hop aroma and flavor seems medium-low/medium but hop bitterness is medium-high. Slightly dry finish. To be fair, this beer is lower in IBUs than our last beer. We originally wanted to try the Pizza Port Que Onda? but it was already out by the time I got to it.
Despite our brief time at the festival, Mrs. BetterBeerBlog and I had a great time. 5 beers isn’t too difficult to get through, even if they were IPAs. We actually spent most of our time catching up with friends we hadn’t seen in a while. Had I paid more attention to the Evite I received the other day, we would’ve been able to stay for a few more tastings. Oh well, there’s always next year.
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Peter,
I can’t tell you how envious I am that you got to have some Russian River IPA!
That brewery makes some ridiculously good beer. Of course it doesn’t make it’s way anywhere near Texas unless you go get some yourself.
How did you really find the FatHeads and Drakes? Been curious about those as of late.
Ilya
Ilya,
Can’t argue with you regarding Russian River. I feel fortunate to be within their distribution area.
I thought the Fat Heads was my second favorite of the day, behind the RR beer and Drakes came in 3rd. I wish we could’ve stayed to try more of the Drakes beers as I heard good things about their IPAs that were in the festival. Overall as a company, I like the beers they brew, their 1500 pale is one of my favorites.
This was the first time I’ve tried Fat Heads though.
@Peter
Yep! Consider yourself very lucky on that one!
Interesting! I can’t wait to get my hands on some one of these days. I’ve heard of their 1500 Pale Ale but of course I haven’t had the pleasure of trying them just yet.
Same goes for Fat Head stuff.
Ilya