And the Hops take Match 2!
Well, there wasn’t much confusion over which beer was the favorite today, with an overwhelming number of you in favor of the Hop Stoopid IPA from Lagunitas! Here’s what we thought today:
Brad – I don’t care if you call it La-goon-E-tas or La-goon-I-tus, I’m calling it a winner. I said today’s match would go to the hoppier beer and I really felt that way until I tasted them both. The Hop Whallop certainly has hoppier flavors and is what it says it is, but the Hop Stoopid IPA has that rare extra something that can lift it past genres of beer and make it a true classic, something to really savor. The ginger presentation that leads to the hoppy finish which has hop flavors uncharacteristic of a usual big hop finish makes it innovative, complex, and delicious and I look forward to having another in round 2.
John – In my book, this was a very close match to call. On paper, these two beers stack up very well next to one another, and this one came down to the wire. Ultimately, I’m voting in favor of the beer with the impressive balance, and that beer is the Lagunitas Hop Stoopid.
Fans – This match was all one-sided, with Lagunitas stepping out to an early lead and never looking back. In the end, the Hop Stoopid took an impressive 83% of the vote.
Coming right out of the gate here I must say that IPAs are my beer type of choice (if you didn’t get that already for the name I am posting under) so I really had no choice but to comment, especially since I have had the pleasure of tasting both these beers.
I must say though I find this result a bit disappointing and here is why. I will concede that the hop stoopid is a rather tasty beer, but to me I did not find anything that really caused it to stand out from most other IPAs. It had good hop character but was well balanced (probably due to a good helping of crystal malt, given its orangish hue). To me the hop whallop stands out and stands alone because it stands true to its name as an IPA. The hop whallop is a no compramise, smack in the face of hops. Unlike most other big IPAs, the hop whallop doesn’t try to hide or temper the hop character with a lot of malt. This leads to a bitter piney/resin character that I can see being disagreeable to some but to a hop addict it is quite fantastic. Other big IPAs like the Dogfish 90 and 120 minute (which are still fantastic, don’t get me wrong there) drink more like a barley wine than an IPA. Therefore, I have to give the hop wallop the nod for standing tall (well as tall as a dwarf/gnome can stand) and giving a true whallop of hops without compromise for those of us who simply can’t get enough of our leafy green friends.