IPA Regionals: West Coast Invitational

In the spirit of tasting only good beers, Whit & Rona suggested a West Coast IPA, bracket-style tasting. We did our best to oblige, but were only able to find California beers of high-enough caliber (there are, of course, plenty of great IPAs from Oregon & Washington, but they're not distributed here). Selecting six of the best from California, the bracket was divided in two: three southern California beers and three northern California IPAs. Seedings were determined from previous tastings.



Most matchups were close, including the final between Racer 5 & Green Flash. All tastings were blind head-to-head matchups. Each member of the panel got one vote, and scores reflect the number of votes each beer received in that particular matchup.



Interestingly, there were very similar hop profiles among five of the six beers tasted (Lagunitas claims "43 different hops". Really?). Most notably, Centennial was pervasive in all IPAs:

	Big Eye	Stone	Green Flash	Celebration	Racer 5
Centennial	•	•	•	•	•
Columbus	•	•	•		•
Chinook		•		•	•
Cascade			•	•	•
Simcoe			•

Given the considerable enthusiasm for the IPA playoffs, next we'll tackle the Atlantic Region, once I decide whether Ithaca's Flower Power belongs in the Atlantic or Central Region. Following that, depending on availability, we may dedicate an entire tasting to Colorado IPAs...

New Dog (in) Town

A year ago we started this endeavor. Returning to Pale Ales, we're adopting a new, streamlined format, with fewer beers to taste. Our overambitious Wheat tasting likely influenced our decision, along with an understanding that we don't need to taste all beers of a category (sorry, Blue Moon & Corona). Think of the past year as regular season. Now it's playoff time.



The (American) Pale Ale is no easy beer to craft. Too much malt, and the hops are overwhelmed, but too aggressive a hop profile moves a beer to the realm of IPAs (not necessarily a bad thing, in the panel's opinion, but IPAs will be tasted later). There was no contest for first place:



Although Sierra Nevada and Flying Dog retained their relative positions, both fell behind Lagunitas' Dogtown Pale Ale. A huge success, Dogtown was almost unanimously the favorite (it was the highest rated beer by 11 of 12 tasters). "I need more 5." "I think I need to re-taste 5." "You can pour me a taller portion of 5." (Dogdown Pale was never tasted first by anyone, but tasting order continued to have little effect on the score; order only accounted for 6% of the variation in scores) The panelists were uncharacteristically succinct in their comments ("Yum" and "Yes, please" were par for Dogtown comments), probably because they were too busy drinking Dogtown to write much more.



Not to dismiss the other four beers; all of which were mostly well-received. Shelter Pale from Dogfish Head is "extremely drinkable", Flying Dog is "good for campfires", and Sierra Nevada's Pale "tastes the same as 7" (which of course is strange, given there were only five beers...).

Next up is Whit & Rona's magnificent idea: Best of the West IPA Showdown. Stone, Racer 5, Green Flash and more. We're not worthy.

Meh

Editor's note: this post languished in the summer heat, unposted for a month. The oversight has been noted and we apologize for leaving you all on the edge of your seats, as you know you were.

On a hot summer day, we cooked up some sausage and threw back some wheat beers. Light and fruity, they offer refreshment without being overbearing.


For most palates, wheat beers were generally unoffensive (but there were exceptions, I'm looking at you, Kona), but at the same time, they were generally unremarkable (the winning brew earned the title spot of this post). Perhaps not surprisingly, the top three spots went to German brews; Weisen Edel-Weiss from Georg Schneiders and Weihenstephaner almost tied, and were followed by a grade of mostly American brews.


You'll note the scores look a bit different. The image shows means of corrected scores, where each tasters' scores (originally on a scale of 0-10) were normalized to have a mean of zero and unit variance. Although it did little to change the relative rankings, it provided a means of comparison independent of individual tasters' preferences. This was especially important for some tasters who were generally underwhelmed with wheat beers. For example, the comments from one taster were (notice the highest praise is of #5):

1. Banana + citrus
2. Banana + metallic
3. Banana + yeast
4. ‹blank›
5. Drinkable, it passes
6. Boo!
7. Icky micky!
8. Why god why?
9. Blach!
10. Ewwwwwww (yeah, seven w's)
11. Beyond bad
12. Almost drinkable
13. It's too dark to comment

The last comment reflects the overambitious nature of this tasting. If you've been counting, you'll note we tasted 13 beers. Lest you think this dulled our taste buds, the correlation between order and score explained less than 0.1% of the variation (yup, r² ‹ 0.001). Nonetheless, numerous comments along the lines of "Not another one?!?" suggest 13 was a bit too much.


So if you're looking for a light refreshment, try some brews from Germany (lemon is recommended, though).

Next we return to where this all started. We will be tasting Pale Ales. A proper treatment is in order, and if you have any suggestions for the best Pales to include (or any we should avoid), just let me know!

Boom! Boom! Pow!

Let me begin by offering an apology to the entire nation of Belgium. To think we could even begin to adequately survey the diversity of brews the country has to offer in a single tasting is pure folly. However, it should come as no surprise that no one on the panel has any care in avoiding folly. Indeed some seek it out. So we tasted nine "Belgian Ales": four domestic, four Belgian, and one Acadian Canadian.



From the motherland: Chimay Cinq Cents, Pauwel Kwak from Bosteels Brouweij, Delirium Tremens, and the classic Duvel. The States contributed Monk's Uncle, a tripel from Seattle's Pike Brewery; Raging Bitch Belgian-Style IPA from Flying Dog (who else?); Weyerbacher's tripel Merry Monks; and a real whopper, coming in at 11.75% ABV, Quad from Harpoon's Leviathan series. And to round everything out, la Fin du Monde from Unibroue.

Following the tabulation of results, there was some concern that tasting order affected scoring, but upon closer inspection, order only explains ~14% of the variation in scores (see below). Although omitting the third beer tasted (Monks Uncle) leads to an increase in r² (to 0.26), I'd like to believe the random number generator in charge of ordering the beers just got lucky.


Among other things not fit for print, the panel had this to say about the contestants:

• Flying Dog's Raging Bitch "Tastes like forest"


• La Fin du Monde was described as "if George Clinton brewed a beer in the bathtub of the mothership." which might have made more sense at the time, but there's no guarantee.


• The beast from the deep, Harpoon's Quad, reminded someone of "Swine truffle farts" What are you people drinking?!? Oh, right, Belgians.


• And finally, according to one panel member, Chimay Cinq Cents "sticks to my moustache" (For the glabrous crowd, that's generally a good thing).

So, who's it gonna be? The grandfathers of the craft, cloistered in monasteries in the mountains (are there mountains in Belgium?) or do the colonies once again show up the old masters (yes, it's a mixed metaphor, but Belgium does share a border with the Netherlands)? In homage to the creators, Weyerbacher's Merry Monks takes the top honor, followed very closely by Chimay's Cinq Cents. Third, well, nothing to incite controversy by including an entry from Flying Dog. Their Raging Bitch Belgian-Style IPA is neither Holy, nor Roman, nor an...wait, sorry, wrong script. As you can see below, the categorization of Raging Bitch as a "Belgian" was contentious, with the second highest variance in scores (following la Fin du Monde).



Prizes! No, nothing tangible, just a warm glowing feeling like when you drink Rogue's Shakespeare stout:

• Katy barely loses the hater award to Rachael, who provided a stingy 4.2 average score.


• Not surprisingly, Skip was the biggest fan of the beers on tap this night, and the most consistent in scoring (Average score of 6.6 & Variance of 3.4)


• In an astounding discovery, Rona is apparently Belgian, given that she had the lowest SSE compared with the internal control (Geraldine, a Belgian courteous enough to refrain from laughing too hard at us gringos).


• By this same metric, Angela is the least Belgian. Or the most German. It's hard to say.

Which leads to the next target of the panel's discriminating focus: Mexico!

Oh yeah!!! (as "Macho Man" Randy Savage would say)

"A pint of bitter, please." This common request has been heard for decades, and will for plenty more. The panel tasted a collection of Bitters, ESB, and Amber ales, and despite some questionable looks about the combined tastings, there was little differentiation among the ales.



Ten entries came to compete, including one representative from England. Although those familiar with English brews may bristle at the representation of the entire country by Fullers' ESB alone, to be fair we included America's own questionable export, Budweiser's American Ale. Rogue had two entries, their Brutal Bitter & American Amber, along with another West Coaster, Stone's Levitation Ale. The East Coast presented the old standard, Red Hook ESB, the unknown Bitter End from Two Brothers of PA, and the green mountain state's Copper Ale from Otter Creek. Two homebrews came in to tangle with the big boys (and held their own thank you very much).



If nothing else, bitters did seem to loosen the panel's tongues, and they had plenty to say about what they tasted. A few gems were:

• Bitter End by Two Brothers: "Boring, like licking bread" Hmmm...so the win wasn't unanimous


• Budweiser American Ale received some praise: "Good, balanced, not bad," "Good, I like it!" (in the commenters' defence, it was a blind tasting). Another commented with "Mighty banana," which doesn't sound like a complement, but at that point in the tasting, it could have meant anything...


• Copper Ale:
  
  "Is this a beer?" Ouch.
  "English, need I say more?" Inaccurate, and yet not...


• Stone Levitation had the highest variance associated with it's scores, resulting in a panel that was...
  ...pleased "Hoppy! Yay! Finally, I'm home...",
  ...afraid "Fierce. The Tyra Banks of Beer",
  ...frugivorous "Holy Grapefruit, Batman!" For the record, we'll be tightening our screening process to prevent infiltration by non-Hominid tasters.

As shown below, Bitter End squeaked by the two Rogue entries to take the top spot and provide this post's title.



And for those goal-oriented folks waiting for their accolades:

• Rainbow is the biggest bitter lover (wow, that could be taken the wrong way), with an average score of 6.85. Although with one of his brews in the mix, does one have to wonder about his objectivity?
  
• Hater award is retained by Katy, who apparently does not like bitters (mean score of 4.35).
  
• Patrick's even-keel (variance of 1.67) is in contrast to Wild Man Chris' variance of 7.34 (how is that possible?).
  

Another round, please.

And now about the cauldron sing

The sweet embrace of roasted barley, caress of chocolate, and just a kiss of hops to finish the experience. Yes, we're tasting stouts. Dark & full-bodied (too much so, for some palettes), this old brew gained worldwide fame through a tall black can equipped with a widget. In this tasting, we challenge the old guard against the brash, sometimes unconventional, upstarts.


Who competed? Representing the old guard were Murphy's, Beamish, and Guinness, all dry Irish stouts. The young'uns came from all over. For imperials, we had Weyerbacher's Old Heathen, Great Divide's Yeti, and Southern Tier's Oat Imperial (yes, an imperial oatmeal stout). The pioneer reviver of the oatmeal stout style, Samuel Smith, represented England, and Rogue's Shakespeare Stout carried the weight of the West Coast on the Bard's shoulders. A local entry, 4BS from Dos Gueros, was dusted off from the basement and included in the mix. Finally, in an effort to redeem itself after the Porter Disaster of '10, Flying Dog's Gonzo Porter (labeled as an "American Stout") was allowed to compete).


A clear winner, Rogue's Shakespeare Stout, may bear such laurels by being the least offensive: of all ten beers, it had the lowest variance in scores.
An oatmeal stout hopped solely with Cascades, it pleased almost every palette (only two of 14 tasters gave it a score lower than 7.0).

By the same token, the cellar dweller oatmeal imperial showed the highest variance in scores. The proponents just couldn't overcome the majority of tasters who were less than impressed. Also of note are the old guard (indicated by tan points in graph above), which were not looked upon favorably.

• The Pants relinquished his stranglehold on the hater award; Katy took that mantle with an average score of 3.5.
  
• Chris, Michael, & Lani clearly like stouts. They all tied for highest average scores of 6.9.
  
• The Pants gets the fickle award, with a variance of 5.78 in scores; while Emrys is once again even-keeled with the only variance in tasting scores less than 2.
  
• Although he showed up halfway through the tastings, Lightnin' RC managed to run the table and taste all ten beers in half the time it took for the rest of the party!
  

Ambers & Bitters coming up next to bid farewell to winter...

Beerspace!

What happens when you combine a hearty appreciation for hops with unhealthy affection for quantitative analyses? The answer is beerspace, an attempt to visualize beer quality and personal tastes via principal components analyses. First, let it be known that many assumptions have been violated (they were pretty drunk, though), including missing data, non-independence among samples, and differing quantification conditions. The results are not too surprising:

24 beers included in the analyses, although only notables are indicated on the graph above. For those wondering where Road Dog Porter falls, forget it. The panel was so polarized against Road Dog it threw everyone into one crowded corner of beerspace. It was deemed an outlier and properly dealt with. Eugenia & Chris are trying their best to be outliers as well...

The "Hop Cluster" is a jumble-muck of many hop-heads. Let's take a closer look:

Not that this focus helped much.

The landscape of this space will surely change with future tastings; additionally, the accuracy of the space representation would be greatly improved by filling in values for missing data. Perhaps we'll have to do more tastings to fill in those holes...

But first, stouts!

This old train is puffin' smoke

On the heels of the unresolved ambiguity of "Winter Ales" we go after porters. A "working man's stout" as some have called this brew, the panel was ready for the smooth flavors in a rich, dark beer (although not all our entries were aware of this definition).


Before the results are presented, let your fears of tasting order be allayed. It turns out the panel is equally fair (or harsh), regardless of the order in which a beer is tasted. As shown below, the relationship between order & score is non-significant. With a measly R² of 0.035, you can all sleep a little easier.


There was considerable excitement about the porters. While the Sierra Nevada - Flying Dog rivalry was being watched, few believed either would best the elixr of Anchor's Porter. Others competing (from East to West): London Porter, Coal Porter (Atlantic Brewing), Robust Porter (Smuttynose), Mocha Porter (Rogue), and Pipeline Porter (Kona Brewing).


Turns out, there are really only two kinds of porters, as far as the panel is concerned: porters we like, and porters that aren't porters. Thankfully, we only had one of the latter. The frontrunners were unexpected: Coal Porter took first, followed by London Porter. The favored Anchor came in at third. It was the perennial competitor Flying Dog (which, interestingly, has moved to Frederick, MD) that was effectively disqualified for being out of category (the panel had additional reasons to believe Flying Dog is confused about the darker ales, but more about that later).


Overheard:

• "Put this in your mouth and swallow." -Brandon's comment to Becca after tasting the Coal Porter. At least, I hope that's what he was talking about...
  
• "I can see Jeff's ugly mug through this beer. One should never have to see that." -Rainbow, with his first exposure to Road Dog.
  

Two other brews showed up, but were excluded from the tasting for being out of category:

• Smuttynose's Baltic Porter. A very rich, very good Baltic porter, part of Smuttynose's Big Beer series. A bomber to sip & share.
  
• Flying Dog's Gonzo Imperial Porter. Another great beer, despite the dissociative identity disorder evident by the description on the bottle: it's apparently an American-Style Imperial Stout. Who knows? Maybe they also say potahto in Colorado Maryland.

Regardless of the Gonzo's identity, it provides an excellent lead in to our next category. Stouts are on tap.

Stop the bus, I'm getting off here.

What, exactly, is a "Winter Ale"? Is it a brew of specialty malts, low-to-moderate hop profiles, and a secret blend of herbs & spices, painstakingly crafted to ward off the chills on blustery winter nights? Or is it merely a beer brewed once a year, released in late fall, adhering to no particular style or ingredient list? Our panel tasted nine such winter brews, to explore the winter ale landscape, with a hope of solving this holiday mystery.

Actually, that goal was abandoned early on, and we just focused on trying as much great ale as possible.

Local favorites included Harpoon Winter Warmer, Smuttynose Winter Ale, and Magic Hat's Howl (technically a lager, but the administration ruled it acceptable). Blue Point's Winter Ale crossed the Sound, and Samuel Smith's Winter Welcome made it across the pond. Coming in from parts the west were Santa's Private Reserve (Rogue Brewing) and the powerhouse Flying Dog's K-9. Perennial favorites from California, Sierra Nevada Celebration Ale and Anchor Christmas, rounded out the competition.

It became clear early on that an exact definition of "Winter Ale" would elude us, as would a consensus of favorites. Some in the panel preferred the malty, complex brews that many would identify as Winter Ale, while others, hopheads to the core, were starry-eyed over Cascade and Millenium hops present in the winter IPAs. The latter were in the majority, as reflected by the results. Coming in at third place was Magic Hat's Howl, an excellent dark black lager that goes down smooth without overwhelming malt & spice.


Celtics & Lakers, Burr & Hamilton, Eddie Van Halen & David Lee Roth, and once again the burgeoning rivalry between Sierra Nevada and Flying Dog came to a head. Both are seasonally brewed ales, but that's about the only thing putting them in this category, as both are pretty clearly IPAs (Celebration is unabashedly IPA). Although K-9 made a good showing, barely edging out Howl for the number 2 spot (6.5 to 6.43, respectively), it was easily bested by Celebration Ale. The IPA from California had an average score of 7.88, and garnered five number one votes from the panel.

A couple of bon mots for the concentration-deprived:

1. Rachel was the most consistent, with a variance of 2.25.
2. The Pants remains the harshest critic, with an average score of 4.89.
3. Sierra Nevada's Celebration Ale, prompted Rona to provide the title of this tasting's post, "Stop the bus, I'm getting off here."

So no consensus on the "Winter Ale" definition was reached, but I think most in the panel will be reaching for some newly tasted winter brews next time they head into the package store.

Porters, anyone?