Besides, this rendition is better:
This week’s brew: Whole Hog Six Hop IPAStyle: India pale ale
Brewed by: Stevens Point Brewery, in the middle of Wisconsin’s “hand” (which only works if the hand has a badly dislocated thumb).
Availability: Six Hop is part of Point’s new Whole Hog series of limited release beers, which come in four-packs priced higher than Point’s usual sixers.
What it’s like: A garden-variety IPA from one of the many middlin’ West Coast breweries – Pyramid’s Thunderhead, perhaps – with the ABV cranked up to 8.7 percent.
In the glass: This beer pours a comely copper but doesn’t hold up to the promise the eye beholds. Six Hop – those would be Pacific Northwest varities Cascade, Cluster, Perle, Sterling, Willamette and Tettnanger, if you’re keeping track – lives up to its name, on the nose and exploding in citrus and flowers on the tongue. But it puts all its effort in the bitter yin of a good IPA and not enough into the sweet yang. The body – a hefty enough malt needed to balance all that bitterness – seems lacking. It’s a pitfall that makes a truly great IPA so hard to find despite what seems like every brewery’s best efforts.
Backwash: The Brew Guru loves the trend of breweries on the fringe of the craft beer pool dipping their toe into the deep end. Leinenkugel’s Big Eddy series from 2007 may be the gold standard. These big beers are a chance to see old breweries in a new light and showcase the brewing talent behind good beers you might take for granted. In this case, one miss – and Six Hop is one – does not necessarily bode ill for the other brews in the Whole Hog series. (The imperial pilsner, also available now, is a style that may be more in Point’s wheelhouse.) Here’s hoping breweries that make large amounts of good beer will keep trying occasionally to make small amounts of great beer as well.
2 mugs (out of four)
