Beer Review: Enjoy After

I drank this one so that you don't have to.

IPAs are a style of beer normally made bitter through a copious amount of hops added at the beginning of the boil. That's not the only way of making a beer bitter, but almost every beer you've ever had uses a bittering addition at the beginning. Later in the boil, additional hops may added near the end to provide hop flavor, and then even more may be added right at the end or after the unfermented beer is cooled to provide aroma. If you've ever heard Miller Lite brag about being "triple hops brewed", they're describing basic brewing principles, not something that makes them special.

Anyway, those later two hop additions provide some oils that degrade quickly. This means in general that you don't age hop-focused beer such as pale ales or IPAs. In fact, Stone has another beer called Enjoy By that has a date in the name that they really want you to drink fresh so you get all of the hop flavor. It's a really good beer.

But instead of brewing a typical style, you can use Brettanomyces to provide some additional flavor. Brett also can provide carbonation for the beer along with some funky and random flavors. Some people love them. I don't.

This simply doesn't taste good to me as an IPA, and it isn't flavorful enough to be a sour beer.