Sierra Nevada - Best of Beer Camp #29 - DIPA

Sierra Nevada – Beer Camp #29 – Double IPA

Sierra Nevada’s Best of Beer Camp #29 is a Double IPA (8.5% ABV).  Double IPAs (India Pale Ales) are typically “bigger” than an IPA and usually have a slightly higher ABV, and a higher IBU.  Beer Advocate describes a Double IPA as, “Take an India Pale Ale and feed it steroids, ergo the term Double IPA. Although open to the same interpretation as its sister styles, you should expect something robust, malty, alcoholic and with a hop profile that might rip your tongue out. The Imperial usage comes from Russian Imperial stout, a style of strong stout originally brewed in England for the Russian Imperial Court of the late 1700s; though Double IPA is often the preferred name.  You can thank west coast American brewers for this somewhat reactionary style. "Thanks!"  #29 pours orangey gold with a large lacey head and has very good carbonation.  Aroma is citrus with floral notes and the prominent hop flavors I noticed were grassy and piney.  This is a hop forward beer and it could use a little more malt sweetness or a little less hop bitterness to strike a better balance.  This is not a bad beer, but I would select Hoptimum or Torpedo from Sierra Nevada over this one.  Hoptimum is actually an Imperial IPA and it is one of the best I have had this year.  Torpedo is an IPA. 

Sierra Nevada – Torpedo

I have had a number of the offerings from Sierra Nevada and I have been very satisfied by the beers from this brewery.  I tried Sierra Nevada’s IPA named Torpedo (7.2% ABV and 65 IBU) again this week as was again very satisfied.  Sierra Nevada calls Torpedo an “Extra IPA”, probably because of the extra hopping completed during the brewing of this beer; it is called Torpedo because of the shape of the device used during dry-hopping.  This one pours gold and just slightly amber with a nice head.  Very nice citrus aroma and tastes very good with an emphasis on the citrus / pine hop bitterness. Sierra Nevada describes Torpedo as “a big American IPA; bold, assertive, and full of flavor highlighting the complex citrus, pine, and herbal character of whole-cone American hops.  Around here, we take hops pretty seriously, which is why we weren’t satisfied with the standard method of dry hopping for our first year-round IPA. We spent years tinkering, tasting, and tweaking ways to get the biggest and best hop flavors and aromas into our beer.  Our persistence has paid off. Our obsession with harnessing huge hop flavor led to the development of what we call the hop torpedo, a revolutionary method of dry-hopping designed, built, and debuted here at the brewery. Our torpedo is a sleek, stainless-steel piece of hardware that delivers more pure hop aroma than any method of dry-hopping we’ve ever seen. Like all our beers, Torpedo Extra IPA uses only the best whole-cone hops possible making this delicious ale worth the wait.”  This is a very good description of Torpedo and I like the extra information about the time, effort and brewing process.  Torpedo is another very good beer from Sierra Nevada.