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Sat, 17 Jun 2006
Beer by the Pale - India Pale Ale, that is (19:17)
I had a chance to try a pair of India Pale Ales in a sitting recently, so let me tell what what I thought. The brews were Long Trail IPA and my current choice Saranac India Pale Ale. I'm not getting sloppy here, Long Trail labels theirs as IPA, and Saranac spells theirs out. The Long Trail is labeled "All natural" and "Unfiltered," and the label says it's "naturally carbonated just as it comes out of our fermenter." It was carbonated, and tasted fine (more on that), but I didn't find any yeast at the bottom of the bottle, so I'm guessing that it was fermented close to completion before bottling, because there was no evidence of secondary (or tertiary) fermentation, aka bottle conditioning. So... it looks nice, has a head, and it tastes pretty good. It's light on bittering hops for my taste, but I believe that hops are our friends and therefore prefer quite a bit of bittering. A few people said it was "sour" but it didn't strike me that way. The Saranac had a far greater load of bittering hops. That might strike some people as unbalanced, and that doesn't make it better, I just like it better. Since the object of gourmet beer consumption is to enjoy the brew, take your pick and drink your favorite. Bittering in IPA is like hot in hot peppers, it's not a test of manhood, it's finding the right balance to enjoy, and depends on the food it enhances. ABV - neither of these brews listed ABV on the label, but you can't fool me, it's in there. Long Trail tells me they use 56 IBU of hops, but the ABV is missing from both the label and the web site. The Saranac site requires flash, which I have turned off for security reasons. If they think they need glitz to get people to read their site, maybe the content isn't interesting enough. I don't like their web site, but I like their brews, I guess that's the important thing.