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After having a few non-Oregon beers, none of which had a whole lot of hop flavor, I decided it was time to reverse the trend. So, being somewhat of a hop head, I thought I’d look through the list of beers at the Oregon Brewers Festival and see which claimed to be the hoppiest. The Summit IPA from Lucky Labrador appeared at the top of the list with an estimated 111 IBUs (I believe the human palate can only sense up to 100), and happened to be a hometown Portland brew.
I knew it would be interesting, when I – despite my muted sense of smell – could smell the hops as it was being poured a few feet away. It was no different when I dipped my nose into the mug and cleary smelled the summit hop aroma – a sort of citrus-grapefruit-floral smell. It had an amber color and a creamy, cream-colored head.
It had a medium body and creamy-smooth mouthfeel, and the I noticed a slight almost honey flavored malt taste before a literal hop explosion in my mouth. The enormous grapefruit and piney floral hop flavor almost literally knocked me down. I found the finish to be a quite sharp hop flavor, but more like an overwhelming cheese, not necessarily metallic. With this one, the flavor definitely sticks around in the aftertaste.
I’m not sure you could pair this beer with a food, as this beer pretty much overwhelms your tastebuds all by itself. Despite considering myself somewhat of a hop head, I found this beer almost unbearable with the amount of hop flavor and bitterness. While it was a good experiment to test my true hop head dedication, I’d pretty much only try this one again on a dare.
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