Sean Inman made a list of his top 10 California IPAs. It didn’t look like the list I’d pick so I wondered what my list would look like. Fortunately I don’t have to look that hard, because I have a year and a half of Untappd stats and ratings to look at. However, I have so many rated at 4/5 that it would be difficult to pick between them, so I’ll ignore those and give you just the 4.5s and 5s, here’s a top 6:
6. Golden Road Heal the Bay: My current obsession. Any easy drinking, fruity, session IPA.
5. Tustin Old Town IPA: “Tropical nose, grapefruit palate.”
4. Eagle Rock Populist. I was kinda surprised to see that I’d rated this one 5 stars, especially since I consistently wrote that it’s piney and malty; not usually my bag.
3. Bison Hop Cuvee: “Delicious citrus hop nose with pine palate and moderate bitterness that sneaks up on you.”
2. Alpine Nelson: “First taste is all Nelson hop, second is super bitter, lingering taste is delicious tropical hop oils! One to savour!”
1. Beachwood Amalgamator: “MOSAIC! PASSIONFRUIT! FIVE! In all seriousness, the nose is amazing, the palate is light as all the non-Mosaic hops sneak in.”
Yes, that’s right. The Five Star Beer Whore has only give four five-star ratings to California IPAs. Actually that’s only true if you discount one-off brews. But my main takeaway from this is that there clearly has to be a California IPA tasting night at some point in my future.
