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Written by David Gilbert
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Every month new beers become available and every season breweries are producing specialty beers that are available only for a limited time. Some breweries are marketing beers truer to the more traditional styles while others are producing more experimental products.
With so many new beers and beer styles to choose from it can be difficult to try them all. Hopefully I can be of some assistance in that noble task. This can be challenging at times but there is nothing more rewarding then hunting down a beer that you have always wanted to try or tasting a beer that you have never drank before.
American brewers are creating pseudo styles which have blown the doors off conventional brewing. Any brewery can create a beer with a high alcohol content but the skill is to maintain a great tasting beer. The Imperial India Pale Ale or Double IPA has become a legitimate style and is recognized with its own category at the Great American Beer Festival. The Imperial IPA is an outrageously hoppy take on the traditional version containing at least 60 International Bitterness Units, (IBUs). Three Floyd’s Dreadnaught is an Imperial IPA with close to 100 International Bitterness Units and 9.5% Alcohol. Stones’ Ruination IPA, Rogues’ I 2PA, Moylans’ Double IPA, Lagunitas’ Maximator and Midnightsuns’ Kohoho are some of the other higher octane beers in this new style.
There are few micro breweries on the West Coast that don’t make an Imperial or Double IPA. On the East Coast Yards IPA, Dogfish Head 60 & 90 Minute IPA, Great Lake’s Commodore Perry, and Middle Ages Wailing Wench are all recent takes on the Imperial IPA. An even more extreme version is Dogfish Head’s 120 Minute IPA which is a fruity hop bomb with an alcohol content of 21%. What a great time to be a hophead!
A lesser known style is the Imperial Pilsner; Full Sail’s Capsize, Rogues’ Morimoto and Dog Fish Heads’ Prescription Pills are three examples of this high-alcohol, full-bodied lager with a strong Saaz hop taste and a long finish.
In Belgium, higher alcohol Tripel (over 9.5%) beers are increasingly popular. Belgium Triples such as Kasteel BIER 12%, Piraat 10.5%, Maredsous 10% and Biere du Boucanier 11% are a few "super" Triples.
Barrel aging beers is also becoming more popular as well. Goose Island’s Bourbon County Stout, Fish Brewing Leviathan Series, Magic Hat Thumb Sucker Imperial Stout and New Belgians sour, woody Lafolie are all brewed in the U.S.
These innovative developments in brewing are redefining how we look at beer.
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