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.
Posts
