Rockit Cup Single Hop Session IPA: Recap

Mother of all beer samplings! We had 11 brewers and 12 beers for this

Our winner!

month’s Rockit Cup Single Hop Session IPA. Yes, I’m the asshole that made two. Why? Because I can. I don’t want anyone getting complacent. Since we had several new participants, I’m just going to list everyone that brewed along with the hop variety that they used:

Darren Link: Pacific Jade
Brian Sanders: Citra
Chris Wyatt: Magnum
Wes Davis: Zythos
Travis Lewis: Motueka
Chris Baumann: Ahtanum
Jon Vanderglas: U.S. Tettnang
Matt Young: Motueka
Todd Clingman: German Brewer’s Gold
Brian Gallow: Mosaic
myself: Comet & Millenium

To streamline the judging process, everyone ranked their top six beers. My inner beer judge self will confess to enjoying the palate fatigue comments made by several participants. Everyone always thinks beer judging is ever so glamorous, but a boat load of hops can quickly throw a monkey-wrench in that game. The top three beers were:

1st: Travis Lewis
2nd: Brian Gallow
3rd: Matt Young

So with a first and a third, I guess it is safe to say that Motueka is a keeper as far as hops go. There were also more differences between these two beers than I would have guessed: Travis’s version was much more hop forward in terms of flavor and character, while Matt’s version had better overall balance. Brian Gallow’s beer was also excellent: bright and vibrant hop flavors. I was happy to see that my two beers made the top six—fourth for Comet and sixth for Millenium. While I was able to pick out my Comet version quite easily (I just wrote Comet in my tasting notes), I failed miserably at identifying my Millenium beer. My tasting notes indicate I was getting citrus and passion fruit more than the usual herbal characteristics I associate with Millenium, so I’m looking forward to going back to taste a couple more bottles of this version of the beer.

Thanks to everyone who participated! June’s Rockit Cup recipe will be posted soon, so stay tuned!

(4/12/13)