Beer Challenge 3: IPA

On Friday Stass, Brad and I met up at Josie Bones for a team meeting before the battle. After having tried the Reniassance Chocolate Oatmeal Stout at the Wheaty a couple of days before, I saw their porter was on tap, so gave it a go, and have to say I found it quite enjoyable with good dark malt backbone and a good blend of hops to go with it. After that, Stass and I tried a Orkney Island Dragon Head, which had good malt up front, but then watered out a bit on the midpalate and then a coffee aftertaste came through. While on that, Brad tried his first Rauchbier, with the Marzen from Schlect. Having become accustomed to such beers, I found it quite enjoyable (mind you, I only had one sip) but seeing Brad did not have any food to cleanse, even with the initial impact being big for him, it only got bigger with each sip. To be honest, he was probably still tasting it by the end of the night.

After our 'briefing', we made it to Team Harrod's brewhouse for the taste off. Ok, so by now we knew our beers was not going to win, seeing it tasted more like an English bitter than an IPA. Still, the beer they came to us with was really good, and just made us feel worse with the effort we had made with ours. The malt was really good on the front texturally and the Amarillo hop flavour came through well on the back of that. The rising hop was fairly intense, and definitely of the American style. With food it was fine, but have a few sips without something to break it up, the hops bitterness did get bigger with each mouthful. It was a good beer to be having the day after International IPA Day, and would be appreciated by many hop heads. We told them they need to name it, as it will be one they will have to brew again.

As for the next challenge, we are going to coffee, coming on the back of some musings our team has had, and after tasting the 'Poo Moo' beer at the Wheaty.

Good Luck Team Harrod! We are even as things stand now, but that will change...

Cheers,

Beef