SDMB Beer Drinkers: Do Session IPA's taste "skunked" to you

Cafe Society
1

Title pretty much says it all. Tastes like ass to me. Is it me or the beer style?

I’ve tried 5 or 6 different ones. Sierra Nevada, Kirkland (I think this is actually Gordon Birsch contract brewing), a couple on tap, and a canned version. IMHO all are nasty.

WTF is up with “Session” beers being defined as under 5% alcohol? I’d like a decent microbrew that is in the 3-4% range and tastes great. a 4.9% session beer versus it’s 5.5% big brother isn’t worth doing in my opinion. Sheesh, I live a volume of beer. It would be nice to go through a 6 pak and not be hammered.

I get that most homebrewers and micro brews really get into doing a triple bocked light stout with chocolate coconut using a mix of 17 different malts/specialty grains/hops with at least a triple digit IBU rating as well as brewed with lager/ale/champagne/wild yeasties before being buried 9.7 feet under the snowpack for the winter. But ya know, sometimes I’d like to have a cold beer and still be legal to drive.

Anyhoo, does Session IPA taste skunked to you?

2

Have you tried Sierra Nevada’s Old Chico?

Personally, I can’t stand most pale ales and have tossed out all the IPA’s I’ve tried.

3

No, I haven’t tried Old Chico. Is it good? SN’s lightest offering at 4.8% alcohol - really?

I love the original Sierra Nevada line up of Pale Ale, Stout and Porter, and drank those early in the 1980’s when they first became available. I just tried a variety 4 pack and was not impressed (it included the Session IPA). Had a few others of their lineup and most are not for my taste. Go figure.

4

No but I might just be lucky.

I don’t seek out Session beers (years of exposure have left me highly resistant to iocaine, um, alcohol ) but both Two Roads and Narragansett put out a decent lighter IPA.

5

This weekend while pontooning we drank Founders All Day IPA. True to name, it’s a session IPA you can drink all day. 4.7 %abv

6

First, I want to point out that a “session IPA” is a sort of oxymoron. The original definition of an IPA was a high hop, high gravity beer meant to survive the trip around the Cape to India in the 19th century. So while there was a characteristic intense bitterness, there was a corresponding maltiness and alcohol level to balance it out. Like where they might be 50 IBU, they might also be brewed from an OG of 1.065 as well. So the BU:GU ratio is around 0.8.

Session IPAs are not high gravity, high alcohol or particularly malty. And that’s where they go off the rails, IMO. The ones I’ve had have been very high in hops, but without the balancing maltiness. If I had to guess, I’d say their BU:GU ratio is probably more in the 1.25-1.5 range.

So my guess is that you’re probably expecting that malty backbone flavor to the beer, and instead, ALL you’re getting is hop flavor and aroma, and depending on the type of hops, that hop flavor can be kind of funky on its own- they call it ‘catty’, and it is a sort of musky/ cat piss kind of flavor.

Poor production methods and storage can also produce similar flavors, and craft beers are more likely to have that than the big breweries are, just due to less tight process controls, etc…

7

Not a huge IPA fan but they are starting to grow on me a bit. The only one I’ve tried that I would try again is the Lagunitas IPA

8

If you can get your hands on Breakside IPA, give it a try. Wonderful citrus and very drinkable, and I’m far from being an IPA fan. It is, however, 6.3 abv.

9

I would concur…Founders “All Day IPA” is quite good, but, as bump pointed out it does lack the malty bass noted characteristic of an IPA.

That being said I also like Schlafly’s IPA at just 5%abv and 30 IBU it is quite session-able.

10

Lagunitas does not make a bad beer. I once drunk-dialed their 800 number to tell them that, and the guy who answered was awesome.

11

I thought the whole idea of the over-hoppy IPA was to “pre-skunk” the beer?

12

In the context of the original IPAs, the idea was to brew a high gravity (i.e. high alcohol) and high hop beer to survive the trip to India and not be spoiled by the time it got there. Alcohol and hops are both fairly potent inhibitors of bacterial growth, so in conjunction, they did the trick.

Technically, skunky flavor is a product of UV light and certain hop compounds in beer. Basically, the UV light chemically alters the hop compounds into something very chemically similar to skunk scent, giving us the characteristic flavor of a whole lot of import beers in clear/green bottles. Grolsch, Heineken, Corona, and Dos Equis Special to name a few that are commonly tainted by it. That’s why most beers are in brown bottles- they significantly attenuate the UV light that reaches the beer. Interestingly Miller products tend to use hop extracts that have been chemically treated to resist that UV light reaction, so they can use clear/green bottles. ISTR that Rolling Rock now uses those as well.

Then there’s the “catty”/blackcurrant taste imparted by either certain hop varieties.

Finally, there are a whole host of off-flavors that are due to poor sanitation or storage.

Here’s a list from craftbeer.com (PDF)

13

Session IPAs aren’t my favorite, but they don’t taste skunky, just a little watered down. A good hoppy beer needs plenty of malt to balance it out, so session IPAs will always slightly miss the mark.

There are a few that I enjoy - the aforementioned Founder’s, Breakside Lunch Break ISA, Ninkasi Easy Way IPA, and Crux Fermentation Project Off Leash. But even as I’m enjoying one, I’m usually thinking it would be even better as a full IPA.

14

I think you nailed it with this. I checked out some Session IPA recipes and they all call for a lot of hops. Here’s the hops in one recipe that uses 8 ounces of hops & 9.5 pounds of grain +.5 pounds caraVienna for 5.25 gallons finished volume and 37.5 IBU. Looks pretty over the top to me but I’m not a hop head.

Hops
0.50 oz Simcoe 11.00%AA 15 minutes
0.25 oz Columbus 11.00%AA 15 minutes
0.75 oz Amarillo 10.00%AA 10 minutes
0.75 oz Simcoe 11.00%AA 5 minutes
1.00 oz Amarillo 10.00%AA Hop Stand for 25 minutes
1.00 oz Columbus 11.00%AA Hop Stand for 25 minutes
1.00 oz Simcoe 11.00%AA Hop Stand for 25 minutes
0.50 oz. Amarillo 10.00%AA Start of Chill
0.50 oz. Columbus 11.00%AA Start of Chill
0.50 oz. Simcoe 11.00%AA Start of Chill
1.25 oz. Amarillo (Whole), 11.00% AA Dry Hop 1
.25 oz. Columbus (Whole), 11.00%AA Dry Hop
1.25 oz. Simcoe (Whole) 14.00%AA Dry Hop

I guess I need to update my vocabulary to “catty” instead of “skunked”. “Catty” seems about right as it is similar but not the same as a “skunked” beer (aka Corona in the sun).

15

Simcoe in particular is known for being catty.

Another way “catty” is described is as being a lot like “dank” weed.

16

I had a single hopped Evil Twin Molotov Cocktail a few weeks ago…it used only Simcoe hops. Maybe the 13% avb balanced the catty taste.