I have been accused of not liking and/or being overly critical of IPAs (India Pale Ales). Neither statements are true, but the latter is close. In reality, I love the style. A well balanced IPA in any season is delicious and refreshing. I am not overly critical of beers within the style, but I am critical of IPAs, as I am with any style. I might come across as aggressive, simply there are more IPAs to judge than other styles, if not in the US, at least in my region of the country.
As with any culture, abundance leads to finicky habits, as is the case with the IPA. America has become hooked on this revived style, and have flooded the shelves with many, many varieties. As a result, I have a wider range to from which to judge superiority. Simply put, they all be good, but they are not all the best.
While I was in KC, I really indulged in beers that are not typically available in Northwest Ohio, and really became quite fond of beers from the St. Louis based, Schlafly. While I was looking through some randomly assorted single 12oz bottles, my eye hit upon a bottle of Export IPA, one of Schlafly’s special releases. I picked up a bottle, expecting a typical IPA (American) flavor: Caramel, hops, hops, hops, citrus, etc. Boy was I wrong!
The beers pour was somewhat typical. The ruby red liquid was a tad more brown that I was expecting, and it appeared just a bit thinner than expected, but overall, it looks like an IPA. Carbonation is fairly active, and stickly lacing leaves neat designs on the glass’ interior.
The aroma burst with pine aromas. I am guessing the typical Pacific Northwest hops were spared or used sparsely in this brew. Alcohol bites are up front on the nose. Beyond this, the aroma is slightly indescribable. The malt aroma is not as caramel/tofee-ish as in other American brewed IPAs.
The flavor caught me WAY off guard. In fact I had to remind myself that this was an IPA! The flavor was crisp and light. The hop aroma is complex, and tastes similar to how a spruce smells. Slightly lemony, but not grapefruity at all. There is a lime hint. The malt flavor is sweet and bready. You can taste the farm a bit in this one. There are extreme flowery and herbal flavors. The malt flavors dissipated quickly after swallowing, and a characteristic flavor that was present from the beginning lingered. I knew the flavor, I just could not pinpoint it…then it hit me..GIN!
There is the most pinpoint unique flavor of a crisp dry gin in this IPA, that makes this beer extremely enjoyable!
After drinking, I looked at ratings on BeerAdvocate just to see others’ reactions, and was shocked and dismayed to see an average rating of B+ from the BA community. Are you kidding me? As I read the reviews, it seemed that perhaps the consumers did not realize that this was not an “American IPA,” rather, it is and English Style IPA. The taste, is quite different from the typical IPAs (many that I do enjoy considerably, but it is more complex than just about any American IPA I have had. I did not expect coherence to my opinion, but, given that the BeerAdvocate seems to overrate most beers, I was not expecting a B+!
Overall, this beer is a beauty. Even if you don’t like gin, I think you will find this beer enlightening.
Nate’s Rating:
Overall Satisfaction: 
Among other IPAs:
Among MO Brews:
Note:
Nice review Nate. Maybe that’s what I need to do and try an IPA of the English variety like the Schlafly you had. I’m not a big fan of IPA’s, or so I thought. Maybe I’m not a big fan of American Style IPAs. Is this anything like the Sam Smith IPA?
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Hey scott,
it has been quite a while since I’ve had Samuel Smiths IPA. It is more what an ‘authentic’ IPA tastes like. I remember I liked it, but it didn’t derive the same ‘outstanding’ reaction that the Schlafly got from me. Do you get Schlafly over in PA?
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The funny thing is the English IPA is the typical IPA, the American IPA is a take off from the EIPA. An EIPA i particularly liked was the Belhaven Twisted Thistle. It is a problem with BA, RB, and quite frankly all of us that review beer, is we’ve been over saturated with AIPA’s and have forgotten or can’t appreciate an EIPA.
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Yes! That’s exactly what I was suggesting…this is an “authentic” IPA, I do believe American IPA’s are (as the name”american IPA” suggests), a style in an of themselves. I resonate your frustrations with the top 2 ranking sites!
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Hey there,
Thanks for the great comments. It is refreshing to hear someone appreciating our Export IPA as a true to style example. I love the American IPA’s out there, in fact we will have one at our Hop in the City festival this year. When we put the Export IPA out, we had our doubts because so many people expect an IPA to taste like and American IPA. We use american malts, but will use a crystal malt instead of caramel to remain true to style and character of the caramel and toffee like falvors. The hops are English. We use Pilgrim and Northdown for bittering and flavor. We contract with English hop growers and we use very good quality East Kent Goldings both in the whirlopool and to dry hop this beer. We have a cool dry hopping process which uses whole cone hops instead of pellets. The dry hopped beers we make go throguh a vessel we call the Hop Rocket. EKG’s have a bit of a black mark on them as cheesy hops due to the fact that many sources of imported hops used to be and can still be old or poorly preserved from harvest and processing. We take great care to get this wonderful aroma hop in its true state infused in our beer to give a rich character in the nose. Thank you for your great comments. It always means alot to us here at Schlafly to hear great things. It makes it all worth while.
Cheers,
Otto, Head of Brewing Operations.
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Thanks for stopping by Otto, we’re quite honored to see your comment here!
Thanks for the info on the beer, too. I really enjoy learning the brewing process. Mike and I hope to open our own brewery someday in the near future. The time and care you guys put in does come through in the flavor.
I can see why you were hesitant to put out this style; American’s love their American IPA. As I said in my review I enjoyed it more.
Hopefully I see some Schlafly on the shelves in Toledo, OH someday, but in the meantime, it gives me a good excuse to visit my in-laws in KC!
Nate
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Otto,
I think that I’d echo what Nate said. It’s really not hard to talk good about you guys. We’ve been praising your stuff lately and your guys have twittered it, which gave us some nice traffic. I personally think there is a huge lack of British Style IPAs, Bitters, ESB or numerous other traditional versions. I just brewed a traditional style ESB myself. I would love for you to sample it…if just for kicks on my end…it might be one of our future brews.
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