Going Pale on #IPADay
Yesterday was the second #IPADay, the annual hashtag-heavy celebration of the world’s favourite beer style. Or, more accurately, America’s favourite craft beer style. Beginning as the brainchild of a couple of Stateside beer bloggers, the event uses the power of social media to convince people that India Pale Ale is the way to go. Of course, most of the people who read beer blogs are aware of this already – so there is an element of preaching to the converted.
Still, it would be churlish to complain about it – and, predictably enough, there’s also a #StoutDay (coming up in November). As a concept, it encourages bars to hold events, gives brewers an excuse to load more hops into things, and gives us punters a chance to try – if not a style we don’t know – a few beers we might not have seen before. Here in Edinburgh, the Caley Sample Room hosted an #IPADay event, although sadly Harbour IPA from the new brewery in Cornwall failed to make it up North.
Looking at the beer lineup on the board, deciding what to drink first was a tough choice. As ever, it was the unusual that won out, and we started with the two one-off, dry-hopped beers. Cromarty Brewing’s Happy Chappy [Riwaka] and Black Isle’s Goldeneye [Motueka and Cascade] were both, predictably, improvements on the original versions – the Chappy in particular was fantastic, bursting with tangerine flavour.
From there, Dark Star American Pale and Hawkshead’s mighty USPA were great beers to follow on with. However, although they were all bursting with hops, none so far are actually IPA’s. In actual fact, the first beer in name that we got through was Deuchars IPA. I’ve written about Deuchars in the past, and whether it’s actually an IPA is something that buzzes around Twitter occasionally. It may not be hugely hopped, but it has those three letters after it (and it got me the untappd badge).
From there, we moved onto Tyne Bank Double IPA – which, as a DIPA is technically not an India Pale Ale either – but there you go. It was a lot softer than I was expecting for an Imperial, although cask DIPA’s are an unusual beast. Some get the hops out, others – like Tyne Bank’s – are caramelly, sweet and have the hop as an undercurrent. At 7%, it was a good beer indeed – but maybe needed a bit more.
Whether you embrace #IPADay or think it’s a pointless bit of social mediary, it gets people talking about beer, and it gets them out drinking in pubs. There’s a certain irony when the only IPA we tried was Deuchars – but the way styles are being blurred these days with the multitude of hopped Pale Ales (and dry hopped session beers), there are no shortage of options for the hop-head, whatever day it is.
