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...