25 August 2011

Hoppy, Hoppy, Joy, Joy, Hoppy, Hoppy--OW YARGH OOF

No, it wasn't served at Max's Taphouse last weekend during their first Hop Fest. (They still have quite a few of their 80+ hoppy standouts still on draft as I type, including most of the Mikkeller Single Hop series.........)

Nor is this likely to be at Frisco's Hop Fest on August 31st.

The Globe and Mail of Toronto reports [emphasis added]:
At the Too Hop To Handle festival in Vancouver last month, Claire Connolly put the name of the event to the test. The brewmaster from Big River Brewpub in Richmond, B.C. entered a small batch of “Insane” India Pale Ale in the friendly competition. It registered 9 per cent alcohol and a shocking 151 International Bittering Units. (IBU is the scale used to measure hop bitterness in beer, given in parts of iso-alpha acids per million.) To put this hop monster in perspective, consider that most IPA, the fastest-rising beer category in North America, falls in the 30-to-60 IBU range.
“I was worried that it wouldn’t be drinkable,” Ms. Connolly said, pouring a glass from a cask that passed through a filter filled with dried hop buds to infuse it with an additional blast of rubber band bitterness and pinecone aroma.
They "Randallized" a cask of 151-IBU IPA..............

And I sense a few readers already searching for a sample of this sadistic creation.

(This is not the record claim; BrewDog claimed 225 IBUs for the first batch of their 0.5%-alcohol Nanny State.)



3 comments:

JohnM. said...

What about the Mikkeller 1000 IBU DIPA?

I personally think this "my IPA/DIPA has a higher IBU level than your IPA/DIPA does" is a complete load of crapola, and I'm not even sure what to make of it. As we discussed at Max's, at a certain point the human tongue is unable to discern any more "bittering units," so what diffence does it make if a beer has an IBU of 151 or 1000? As I believe we discussed, it smacks of small boys checking themselves out, claiming that a certain part of their anatomy is bigger and more handsome than someone else's.

What utter nonsense....

Alexander D. Mitchell IV said...

First, the "1000 IBU" claim is outright false advertising, and I'm wondering if anyone is willing to pursue such charges against them. The industry professionals I have talked to say that any beer with 1,000 IBUs would not only be undrinkable, but cause intestinal distress and possibly burns to the esophagus (heck, 225 in Nanny State was like drinking undiluted caustic floor cleaner!). There's no way it actually has 1,000 IBUs; a better guess is perhaps 150-175.

JohnM. said...

Sh*t Alex, have you tried the Mikkeller 1000? You're entirely too generous.

My guess would have been more along the lines of 70 or 80...

See the latter part of my comment about small boys boasting over their private parts and otherwise trying to show off.