Knee Deep Brewing Company - Simtra

It's recently come to my attention that I've been reviewing a lot of stouts lately. Stouts may be my favorite style, but devoting something like 47 of the past 50 posts to them may be going a bit overboard. My bad. Since I live in San Diego, let's take a look at a style that just screams "San Diego." In fact, it's also known as the San Diego IPA. That's right, today we're trying a new Double IPA. And a good one at that.

I'm still not sure why, but for a long time, I just didn't take Knee Deep Brewing Company seriously. I don't know if it was their name, their labels, their price range, etc. For whatever reason, I've been avoiding Knee Deep's beers like the plague. Then I started hearing things that were hard to ignore.

"Have you tried Hop Shortage? It's the best Double IPA I've ever had!" 

"Have you tried Simtra? It's as good as Pliny!"

I don't take beers being compared to Pliny lightly, and when Knee Deep's Simtra made an appearance on the Top 250 List, I knew the time had come. Let's see if these Knee Deep brewers know what they're doing. 

Simtra pours a light copper color with a fluffy, bone white head. Tons of carbonation is visible rising from the bottom of the glass and the head leaves smears of lace down the glass with each sip. Visually, this beer has it all. The smell isn't too shabby either. As soon as the beer is poured, it smells like a tropical hop bomb blew up in the glass. Huge notes of mango, tangerine, candied grapefruit and pine practically billow from the glass. There's a touch of caramel and bready malt in there was well, but it's pretty safe to call this one a hop forward Double IPA.

Every sip of Simtra brings a drawl of piney hops across the palate and they just keep going and going. There's a good amount of grapefruit pith as well, along with a blanket of caramel malt that struggles to keep the boatloads of hops in check. As far as the Pliny comparisons go, you can leave those at the door. It is very, very hard to come near Pliny and (for me) Simtra doesn't touch it. However, it IS a fantastic Double IPA. Consider me impressed. I will definitely be seeking out more of Knee Deep's beers in the future.

Final Grade: A-

Top 250 Beers Tasted: 126

Kern River Brewing Company - Citra DIPA

When I was starting on my quest to try all of the Top 100 Beers, I looked through the list and made a note of all the beers on the list that are made in California. As it turns out, there are quite a few. "Perfect," I thought, "those are gonna be a piece of cake to check off the list." As it turns out, I was wrong. Granted, I'm going to have an easier time getting most of the California beers on the list than someone across the country, but some of these are tough to find. One in particular was Kern River's Citra Double IPA.

Kern River beers aren't the easiest to find in San Diego, but if you know where to look, they can be found. Because of that, I figured it was only a matter of time before Citra showed up in San Diego. Then, I found out that Citra was a seasonal release that could be found only at the brewery. I was pretty bummed until I spotted a post on beeradvocate announcing that Citra was finally going to be bottled. I went to liquor store after liquor store looking for it and finally landed a bottle at Mesa Liquor. A few days later, I finally got to try it. At #12 on the Top 100 list: Citra.

Citra pours a slightly hazy golden color with an extremely thin cream colored head. While the appearance didn't really blow me away, the smell did. Huge citrus hops, mango, grapefruit, and a ton of pine waft from the glass and can be smelled from a distance. Second to the Plinys, this may be the best smelling DIPA out there.

The taste starts with some fresh and peppery pine hops along with some flavors of mango and grapefruit juice. Some caramel malts smooth out the middle of the taste and the finish is full of pine hop resin. This was definitely worth the trouble to get and I highly recommend seeking it out if they decide to bottle it again. Let's hope that's in the very near future.

On a side note, Citra just took home a gold medal at the Great American Beer Festival over the weekend in the Imperial India Pale Ale category. Well done, Kern River!

Final Grade: A+

Top 100 Beers Tasted: 33

Russian River Brewing Company- Pliny the Elder

There are few beers out there with the reputation of Pliny the Elder. Rated the #2 beer in the world by Beer Advocate, it's become one of the harder beers to find in the country, especially if you live outside of California. Fortunately, I do not.

I had trouble finding this one for a while. But one day, I walked into a local liquor store and there it was, waiting for me. I had planned to try a different beer that day, but it's too hard to wait for Pliny. Plus, there are about 50 warnings on the bottle telling you not to age this beer and to drink it fresh, so the issue was settled.

First of all, let's learn a bit about this beer. It's brewed by Russian River, a brewery that, as far as I'm concerned, has yet to miss on a beer. It is named after the roman scholar who is credited with giving the botanical name to hops. Pliny is classified as a Double IPA, which means it's going to have more malt and more hops than a regular IPA. In fact, Pliny is brewed with 40% more malt and twice the hops as RR's standard IPA, Blind Pig (another great beer). On a side note, there's also a beer called Pliny the Younger. This has a reputation for being one of the most difficult beers to find in the world. It comes out in February and is only released on draft. You have to know where it's going to poured and be there within 20 minutes of the keg being tapped if you want a chance at trying this one. Look for a review in February (if I'm lucky).

Back to the Elder. The beer pours a coppery golden color with a lush foamy white head which settles fairly quickly. The smell is amazing. Sure, the hops are there, but they're coupled with some surprising scents. I could pick our pineapple, mango, a little bit of wet grass, and a decent malt presence. This, of course is all tucked under the real star of the show- the huge piney hops. The beer smells incredible.

The taste, if it's possible, is even better. I was glad to see that this beer wasn't a straight hop bomb like a lot of IPAs. This was even a beer that I can see people who aren't huge hop heads appreciating. The hops definitely take the lead, but they're offset by a lot of grapefruit and a hard peppery bite. The finish is all resiny hops, but it doesn't stick to your mouth and leave you puckering up. It fades smoothly, leaving you wanting more and more. The feel of the beer is perfect; velvety smooth and full. If you can find this one, do not pass it up.

Final Grade: A+