Fishdog River Brewing Co.’s Ultimate I.P.A.

February 18, 2016 7:42 AM

"When we started developing the recipe for the Ultimate I.P.A., back in 2004, we had one goal: to concoct an ale so utterly undrinkable that the craft-beer community would have no option but to shower it with praise." [SLNewYorker]
posted by schmod (90 comments total)

If I never had to read another anti-hops-snob snob complaining about hops and hops snobs and snobbery about hops, I could die happy.
posted by shakespeherian at 7:48 AM on February 18, 2016 [43 favorites]

so... where can I get some?
posted by cubby at 7:49 AM on February 18, 2016 [5 favorites]

TROPHY BEER
posted by the painkiller at 7:50 AM on February 18, 2016 [1 favorite]

I wish this was real.
posted by slogger at 7:50 AM on February 18, 2016

Nice. The only thing this beer is missing is a bro-y sexist punny name.
posted by Maaik at 7:50 AM on February 18, 2016 [2 favorites]

> If I never had to read another anti-hops-snob snob complaining about hops and hops snobs and snobbery about hops, I could die happy.

You mean you could die hoppy ftfy.
posted by ardgedee at 7:50 AM on February 18, 2016 [32 favorites]

Wait, couldn't this be accomplished with just a blender and a pound of hops?
posted by Octaviuz at 7:51 AM on February 18, 2016

This article in 2016 is like an article complaining about the Beanie Baby fad in 2004.
posted by uncleozzy at 7:53 AM on February 18, 2016 [14 favorites]

I can't wait for the session backlash!
posted by shakespeherian at 7:54 AM on February 18, 2016 [5 favorites]

The alcoholic beverage community finally wiped disgustingly oaky buttery Chardonnays off of the face of the planet, so now we turn our death gaze towards overhopping.

Let the beer be beer! Let the wine be wine! If you want something nasty, go do shots of Ferlort (1/2 Fernet Branca, 1/2 Malort) and defile your mouth that way.
posted by komara at 7:54 AM on February 18, 2016 [10 favorites]

I can't wait for the session backlash!

That happens reliably the next day. Unless you have Opioid Induced Constipation (speak to your doctor).
posted by srboisvert at 7:58 AM on February 18, 2016 [5 favorites]

I can't wait for the session backlash!

Pretty sure Sierra Nevada declared the session IPA dead this year.
posted by uncleozzy at 7:58 AM on February 18, 2016 [1 favorite]

If I were a brewer, every time I read one of these anti-hopping articles my response would be "I have altered the hop profile of your beer. Pray I do not alter it any further"
posted by IjonTichy at 7:58 AM on February 18, 2016 [18 favorites]

What a timely bit of satire, New Yorker.
posted by echocollate at 7:59 AM on February 18, 2016 [1 favorite]

Snark or no snark, yay IPAs (although this time of year I'm all about stouts) and yay for a beer thread!

- My favorite when I first fell in love with IPAs: Terrapin's Hopsecutioner
- My current favorite: Parkway Brewing's Get Bent
posted by headnsouth at 8:00 AM on February 18, 2016

"hot sauce names and IPA names will someday converge. afterwards, you'll pick up a bottle and wonder if its undrinkable, or if it's hot sauce" from twitter, not my joke
posted by zjacreman at 8:01 AM on February 18, 2016 [8 favorites]

I prefer Angry Goatface Hopfuck.
posted by jedicus at 8:03 AM on February 18, 2016 [6 favorites]

Hahaha. So funny.
No, wait - it's not. It might have been funny a few years ago but now it's an old and tired idea. Did the New Yorker writer just now realize there's a trend to hoppy beers? If so, they"re about a decade too late.
posted by Docrailgun at 8:03 AM on February 18, 2016 [2 favorites]

Well, they were going to make fun of beer drinkers who drink gose, but then they realized those people were drinking gose and it seemed too mean to add insult to injury.
posted by robocop is bleeding at 8:05 AM on February 18, 2016 [7 favorites]

hay guyz i have strong opinions about other people's tastes and what they drink so i wrote a tired new yorker article about it
posted by entropicamericana at 8:06 AM on February 18, 2016 [4 favorites]

If you want something nasty, go do shots of Ferlort (1/2 Fernet Branca, 1/2 Malort)

I...what...the...GOD DAMMIT!!!!
posted by eriko at 8:08 AM on February 18, 2016 [4 favorites]

It's still a marked improvement over The New Yorker's regular satire bits, in which Andy Borowitz just types 'The GOP woos votes from core idiot constituency' over and over in a frantic sweat.
posted by shakespeherian at 8:10 AM on February 18, 2016 [8 favorites]

yeah, when did the New Yorker start trying to be The Onion?
posted by logicpunk at 8:15 AM on February 18, 2016 [2 favorites]

If you want something nasty, go do shots of Ferlort (1/2 Fernet Branca, 1/2 Malort)

I prefer the Malorovka (1/2 Malort, 1/2 Becherovka).
posted by dis_integration at 8:19 AM on February 18, 2016

Ah, how far we've come from the days when beer was sold with "You can taste the hops in Ben Truman" (a canoe-sex keg horror of which my then-squeeze said "You get more hops in a dead frog").

I do fear that now the New Yorker has spotted this, though, we're so far down the cycle it's back to Double Diamond, Red Barrel and Trophy Bitter in no time.
posted by Devonian at 8:21 AM on February 18, 2016 [2 favorites]

If you want something nasty, go do shots of Ferlort (1/2 Fernet Branca, 1/2 Malort)

I prefer the Malorovka (1/2 Malort, 1/2 Becherovka).

now making signs of horns walking slowly backwards out of bar
posted by lalochezia at 8:22 AM on February 18, 2016 [8 favorites]

R.I.P., Metafilter Hops Snark. We will miss you almost as much as Antonin Scalia.
posted by mubba at 8:22 AM on February 18, 2016 [2 favorites]

(Apparently we are in a season of satire around here for some reason. I think I must be broken in some way, because it is all falling flat for me. Hopefully it will be a short season.)
posted by yesster at 8:24 AM on February 18, 2016

dis_integration: "(1/2 Malort, 1/2 Becherovka)."

I would brush my teeth with Becherovka if my mother would let me.
posted by chavenet at 8:24 AM on February 18, 2016 [1 favorite]

They're just bitter.
posted by Pistache at 8:33 AM on February 18, 2016 [12 favorites]

On the other hand.... sours.

I have no reason to doubt that there are people who genuinely like sour beers, but for me, they approach "spit it out onto the floor" levels of disgustingness.

I guess they're the cilantro of beers...
posted by schmod at 8:39 AM on February 18, 2016 [2 favorites]

I feel the same way about barrel-aged anything. I don't want wood in my beer. At all. Ever.
posted by uncleozzy at 8:42 AM on February 18, 2016 [1 favorite]

We can stop making fun of overhopped IPAs when brewers stop overhopping their IPAs. And giving them names with "hop" puns in the title.
posted by tobascodagama at 8:47 AM on February 18, 2016 [8 favorites]

Well, they were going to make fun of beer drinkers who drink gose,

What's good for the gose is good for a gander, I suppose.
posted by GenjiandProust at 8:51 AM on February 18, 2016 [4 favorites]

We can stop making fun of overhopped IPAs when brewers stop overhopping their IPAs. And giving them names with "hop" puns in the title.

"Overhopped" is subjective, as is the humor in puns, and you can stop anytime.
posted by headnsouth at 8:51 AM on February 18, 2016

We will miss you almost as much as Antonin Scalia.

T bitter old things, kept alive mostly by spite and fear of change?
posted by GenjiandProust at 8:52 AM on February 18, 2016 [1 favorite]

> I feel the same way about barrel- aged anything. I don't want wood in my beer. At all. Ever.

Clearly you've never tried Innis & Gunn, you poor deprived soul.
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 9:07 AM on February 18, 2016 [7 favorites]

Well, they were going to make fun of beer drinkers who drink gose, but then they realized those people were drinking gose and it seemed too mean to add insult to injury.

Yes, goses and berliners weisses and such are bad. You wouldn't like them. I guess some of us will just have to have them all to ourselves. To protect everyone else.
posted by clockzero at 9:10 AM on February 18, 2016 [7 favorites]

Clearly you've never tried Innis & Gunn, you poor deprived soul.

I have. It was probably the first barrel-aged beer I tried, way back when. I just don't like sweet wood-and-vanilla notes in beer.
posted by uncleozzy at 9:13 AM on February 18, 2016 [4 favorites]

The edgy machismo of craft alcohol marketing is just as much an affectation as an Axe ad, and even more mock-worthy for its superficial earnestness.
posted by CBrachyrhynchos at 9:29 AM on February 18, 2016 [6 favorites]

... shoot a billion hops per second into the mash tun...

Domain research fail, Mr. Journalist. Bitterness is not what mash hopping is for, and it arguably doesn't contribute much flavor to the beer.
posted by gurple at 9:34 AM on February 18, 2016 [2 favorites]

go do shots of Ferlort

Is that like a cement mixer? Hold a shot of Irish creme in your mouth while you take another shot of lemon juice?
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 9:53 AM on February 18, 2016 [1 favorite]

shakespeherian: "It's still a marked improvement over The New Yorker's regular satire bits, in which Andy Borowitz just types 'The GOP woos votes from core idiot constituency' over and over in a frantic sweat."

God, he's just the worst.
posted by Chrysostom at 10:14 AM on February 18, 2016

I rate beers with one simple test: If I were to find out I was actually drinking a pint of chilled diarrhea, how surprised would I be? An astounding number of craft beers hit "not at all."

As much as I'd love to root for the little guy every time, it'd be a lot easier if their product wasn't so often completely godawful.
posted by Sys Rq at 10:15 AM on February 18, 2016 [1 favorite]

"hot sauce names and IPA names will someday converge. afterwards, you'll pick up a bottle and wonder if its undrinkable, or if it's hot sauce" from twitter, not my joke"

Chipotle Rogue beer is the only Rogue beer I did not enjoy.
posted by el io at 10:32 AM on February 18, 2016 [1 favorite]

I rate beers with one simple test: If I were to find out I was actually drinking a pint of chilled diarrhea, how surprised would I be? An astounding number of craft beers hit "not at all."

As much as I'd love to root for the little guy every time, it'd be a lot easier if their product wasn't so often completely godawful.

I don't know what's going on in your life but something is going terribly wrong when it comes to beer and possibly tasting things, itself
posted by clockzero at 10:39 AM on February 18, 2016 [9 favorites]

I don't want wood in my beer. At all. Ever.

Would you settle for xylose?
posted by aramaic at 10:41 AM on February 18, 2016 [3 favorites]

And, remember, if you don’t like it, you’re wrong. And your favorite band ... &c.

I don't like hoppy beer. I would mostly not care, but it gets difficult to find something drinkable at some bars. If you like it, hop on.
posted by theora55 at 10:45 AM on February 18, 2016 [4 favorites]

MetaFilter: torturous with a hint of devastating.
posted by Splunge at 10:45 AM on February 18, 2016 [2 favorites]

I rate beers with one simple test: If I were to find out I was actually drinking a pint of chilled diarrhea, how surprised would I be? An astounding number of craft beers hit "not at all."

Wow, you should really see a doctor.
posted by shakespeherian at 10:45 AM on February 18, 2016 [7 favorites]

People, you're making me feel kind of awful for my honest enjoyment of heavily hopped IPAs and my belief that Andy Borowitz at least does pretty good headlines. Why, exactly, are you doing this? Are craft beer and the New Yorker your sole diversions at the end of a long working day? Yikes.
posted by ColdOfTheIsleOfMan at 10:47 AM on February 18, 2016 [2 favorites]

I just don't like sweet wood-and-vanilla notes in beer

ugh, yes, vanilla notes in beer. This is my issue with "winter ales". Interesting bit of trivia about this: the first person to come up with the idea of creating a beer with a slight taste of vanilla was No One, all the way back in Never.
posted by Hoopo at 10:53 AM on February 18, 2016

I'm sure there are some legitimately nasty products from microbrews out there. I just haven't tried them, because I tend to stay away from beers that sound like stunts or that they were made as a dare. You see, I learned my lesson early. 20 years ago as teenagers, my friends and I created Cheetobrau in a you-brew place. Take it from me, microbrews: just because something sounds like a funny idea doesn't mean you should make a beer out of it.
posted by Hoopo at 11:20 AM on February 18, 2016 [3 favorites]

I just don't understand it. Not the hops obsession. The backlash against it.

50 taps, and 40 of them are overhopped monstrosities? Well, that's 10 you consider drinkable, which is better than when bars had 5 taps, and they were all undrinkable.

It's like complaining about the post-prog-electroclash rock band you heard and didn't like. It's not FOR you.

They're still making Bud Light, and Coldplay's still churning out songs. Let the rest of us revel in novelty and weirdness, ok?
posted by explosion at 11:25 AM on February 18, 2016 [12 favorites]

I know some people who started a brewery that had a Berliner Weiss as one of their selections. It wasn't bad on its own at all, but it really shone if you added flavored syrup to it, which I guess is kind of a traditional thing. They'd even serve a Weiss flight that included one glass each with every syrup and a plain one. The two berry versions they had were ok, but the woodruff syrup, which is neon green in the bottle, was surprisingly good.
posted by LionIndex at 11:28 AM on February 18, 2016

I found wild hops growing along a stream I frequent. I was surprised, and wondered about secret beer brewing, up South Fork. I think next fall I will brew a South Fork Wild Elderberry IPA.
posted by Oyéah at 11:33 AM on February 18, 2016

It's like, how much more hops could this be? and the answer is none. None more hops.
posted by blue_beetle at 11:33 AM on February 18, 2016 [7 favorites]

I'm sure there are some legitimately nasty products from microbrews out there

We went to a new local brewery last weekend. They had nine of their own beers on tap. I was shocked that most of them were very good. Usually in a small place with that many on tap at least one or two have some kind of horrible off-note (I'm looking at you, place next to White Castle; you know who you are). These were obviously well-planned, well-executed beers. Mostly American styles and a few Belgians. All good.

One, though ... what should have been a pretty basic pale ale ... was just horrendous. Not just a normal off-note. Something truly rank. Old, sweaty funk. Not just too-much-Summit-or-Sauvin. Something worse.

I'm looking at Untappd checkins from the surrounding days, and they're all 4ish-star reviews. I suspect they were from the same keg. I'm convinced that nobody has any idea what they're tasting.
posted by uncleozzy at 11:34 AM on February 18, 2016 [2 favorites]

ugh, yes, vanilla notes in beer. This is my issue with "winter ales". Interesting bit of trivia about this: the first person to come up with the idea of creating a beer with a slight taste of vanilla was No One, all the way back in Never.

Vanilla flavors come naturally from oak, which is one of the most common woods used for barrel making. Storing beer in barrels has been a common practice for centuries. Fair enough not to care for the taste, but oaky, vanilla flavors have been present in beer for a long time.
posted by jedicus at 11:36 AM on February 18, 2016 [2 favorites]

One, though ... what should have been a pretty basic pale ale ... was just horrendous. Not just a normal off-note. Something truly rank. Old, sweaty funk. Not just too-much-Summit-or-Sauvin. Something worse.

DMS?
posted by shakespeherian at 11:42 AM on February 18, 2016

DMS?

I don't think so (I've tasted DMS in beers before), but to be honest, it was the last sample I had (and they were healthy pours), so I ... may have been a little impaired. Not so impaired that it tasted good, though.
posted by uncleozzy at 11:46 AM on February 18, 2016

That hoppy and bitter flavor is all in the eye of the beholder or should I say the mouth of the beholder. I have had ipas that tasted like pine trees and dirt while others claim to be palate wreckers which were barely bitter. I was actually looking forward to trying this horrid beer I would be forced to praise since I personally am not a fan of ipas buy yet drink so much of it.
posted by cosoc at 11:48 AM on February 18, 2016

Storing beer in barrels has been a common practice for centuries.

apparently lambic, saison, blonde ale etc. I don't mind a saison from time to time but yeah, none of these are my thing
posted by Hoopo at 11:50 AM on February 18, 2016

If you like the flavor notes from barrel aging, try to get your hands on Firestone Walker's Velvet Merkin, a bourbon barrel aged oatmeal stout. Because, damn. Their Parabola imperial stout is pretty great, too. I am starting 12 gallons of vanilla bourbon porter this weekend. Cheers!
posted by xedrik at 12:01 PM on February 18, 2016 [3 favorites]

ugh, yes, vanilla notes in beer. This is my issue with "winter ales". Interesting bit of trivia about this: the first person to come up with the idea of creating a beer with a slight taste of vanilla was No One, all the way back in Never.

So Belgium then. I love Belgian winter beers. I used to buy them up and hoard them to drink all year long. The guy at my local offie used to keep some under the counter all year long just for me.

Sadly I can get very few seasonal Belgians beers here in Chicago.
posted by srboisvert at 12:11 PM on February 18, 2016

Williamsbeerg is full of hopsters.
posted by grumpybear69 at 12:11 PM on February 18, 2016 [3 favorites]

There used to be this beer that I only ever had at a gallery in pittsburgh that held first friday openings that was the hoppiest shit in a terrible way. It was bitter and unpleasant in a mindboggling way, this was also exacerbated by the fact that the gallery was floored entirely in pennies which gave the whole air of the place a metallic tang. I tried it twice just to make sure I didn't get a bad batch.

It was like drinking the bittering agent that gets put into anti-freeze to make it unpalatable to children and animals. I think it's really the only beer I've every been truly disgusted by in a lingering way that eating food didn't resolve.
posted by Ferreous at 12:25 PM on February 18, 2016 [3 favorites]

The last beer I had that I honestly found undrinkable was a pecan-flavored thing the name of which escapes me. I mean this is a fall-themed stunt beer and (as far as I know) I still have a pack minus one in the fridge. But that's a fate I brought on myself really come on.
posted by atoxyl at 12:43 PM on February 18, 2016

Sours (I'm looking at you, Westbrook Gose) uniformly make me gag, but I'm happy they're there for those who enjoy them.
posted by echocollate at 1:03 PM on February 18, 2016 [2 favorites]

The alcoholic beverage community finally wiped disgustingly oaky buttery Chardonnays off of the face of the planet, so now we turn our death gaze towards overhopping.

Let the beer be beer! Let the wine be wine!

MAKE BEER GREAT AGAIN!
posted by ennui.bz at 1:11 PM on February 18, 2016 [6 favorites]

one of these anti-hopping articles

I didn't think this is about the hops at all, it's a parody of the marketing copy that comes out of many small microbreweries (and other companies). That the marking is about hops is sort of beside the point. It could just as well be about artesianal sorghum or any other ingredients that makes the beer "special."
posted by CheeseDigestsAll at 2:32 PM on February 18, 2016 [2 favorites]

I guess they're the cilantro of beers...

Wait, you don't like cilantro either? That could be a genetic thing, I wonder if there's a genetic reason for disliking delicious sour beers.
posted by cell divide at 2:38 PM on February 18, 2016 [1 favorite]

If you like the flavor notes from barrel aging, try to get your hands on Firestone Walker's Velvet Merkin, a bourbon barrel aged oatmeal stout. Because, damn. Their Parabola imperial stout is pretty great, too. I am starting 12 gallons of vanilla bourbon porter this weekend. Cheers!

You had me at "Velvet Merkin" . . .
posted by jeremias at 3:28 PM on February 18, 2016

I found this MetaFilter comment to make the same point more succinctly, and at least as amusingly.
posted by Joakim Ziegler at 4:34 PM on February 18, 2016

(Also, some people sure seem to be hopping mad about the whole IPA thing, amirite?)
posted by Joakim Ziegler at 4:35 PM on February 18, 2016

You people. In my day we drank to blot out things, not to enjoy stuff.
posted by um at 5:32 PM on February 18, 2016 [4 favorites]

it'd be a lot easier if their product wasn't so often completely godawful

Yep. A friend of ours is setting out as a chocolatier, and says that his aim is to make stuff that is actually nice to eat. Apparently this isn't quite as obvious a thing as I thought.

On the beer front, a bar I was in the other week offered an "orange marmalade and lapsang souchong IPA". It was horrible, and the barman said that no-one had finished an entire glass. Why do people do this?
posted by 43rdAnd9th at 6:05 PM on February 18, 2016

I found this MetaFilter comment to make the same point more succinctly, and at least as amusingly.

Yeah, I definitely agree with that sentiment. I like normal IPAs just fine. The Octuple Hoppapaloozas of the world can get stuffed, though.
posted by tobascodagama at 6:45 PM on February 18, 2016 [1 favorite]

The alcoholic beverage community finally wiped disgustingly oaky buttery Chardonnays off of the face of the planet...

From my cold dead hands!

Taste is subjective.
posted by mudpuppie at 6:53 PM on February 18, 2016

Sours (I'm looking at you, Westbrook Gose) uniformly make me gag, but I'm happy they're there for those who enjoy them.

That's funny. Westbrook's gose is one of the only beers I've drunk that's made me think "I could literally drink this all day." So, so refreshing.
posted by clockzero at 8:43 PM on February 18, 2016 [1 favorite]

Thanks for the reminder to pick up some HopSlam for the weekend!
posted by kyleg at 10:02 PM on February 18, 2016

43rdAnd9th: "On the beer front, a bar I was in the other week offered an "orange marmalade and lapsang souchong IPA". It was horrible, and the barman said that no-one had finished an entire glass. Why do people do this?"

Orange marmalade and lapsang souchong sound like they'd go nicely together. The problem here might be the IPA part.
posted by Joakim Ziegler at 10:12 PM on February 18, 2016 [1 favorite]

They should have named the fake brewery Fish in a Barrel Brewery, amirite?

I love hops, particularly Mosaic. I really like 10Barrel Joe and Deschutes Freshly Squeezed (and almost anything from Gigantic, especially Business Time). I really like the Ale Industries stuff too.

So, any good Mosaic recs?
posted by mrgrimm at 10:33 PM on February 18, 2016

Actually, don't. I just stopped drinking (erm) and don't need the temptation. Message me after 6 months. ;)
posted by mrgrimm at 10:35 PM on February 18, 2016

I usually prefer the heavily hopped IPAs, but I had a Fernet Porter which was very nice. A black beer aged in Fernet barrels, not something I would normally consider drinkable, but it was a magnificent way of finishing off the evening. I thought it was from Sierra Nevada, but maybe it was Odell's.
posted by asok at 5:27 AM on February 19, 2016

50 taps, and 40 of them are overhopped monstrosities? Well, that's 10 you consider drinkable, which is better than when bars had 5 taps, and they were all undrinkable.

So much this. Even the most uninspired of small town bars these days will have a selection that goes beyond Coors Light and Bud, and any city hipster place will have a nicely wide selection. I can always find something drinkable by asking the bartender or getting a few tasters. I haven't been in a place with zero selection in years, and I have ended up in a lot of bars that would be on no one's top ten list.

I do wish the microbrewery industry would dial down the faddishness a bit, just because it is silly how one season it is all extreme hopping, then it is sours, and then something else. But those are easy to ignore by simply getting a few tasters and going for whatever you enjoy, whether that is a mass market light beer or the new fruity concoction.
posted by Dip Flash at 5:49 AM on February 19, 2016 [1 favorite]

So, uh, at what point do we all just tacitly agree that MetaFilter needs a grey-market beer exchange, because the only other options for finding any of the hyper-local distributions are Reddit and BeerAdvocate, each of which is problematic for its own reasons?

I will send you Trillium. Delicious, delicious Trillium.
posted by Mayor West at 6:02 AM on February 19, 2016 [8 favorites]

Fernet porter? Porter aged in Fernet barrels? There is a beer god! Tears are streaming down my face... I MUST HAVE THIS BEER!
posted by Ashwagandha at 7:32 AM on February 19, 2016

"A black beer aged in Fernet barrels"

Huh. I was not aware that Fernet was aged in barrels. I just assumed some hearty souls traveled to the far-off Lands of the Hulking Bitter Mint Lizards and risking life and limb snuck up to their eggs and drilled small holes in them and captured the stinking leaking fluids in green glass bottles and then slapped on some labels and that was that.

[I kid, I kid. Fernet is delicious, whether or not it's Hulking Bitter Mint Lizard amniotic fluid.]
posted by komara at 8:06 AM on February 19, 2016 [1 favorite]

explosion, I've seen 15 taps where 13 were extra-hoppy, 1 was a stout and 1 had something weird in it, like berries or herbs or something. In which case I might have to do something crazy, like drink water. And, yes, I am deeply appreciative of the craft beer movement.
posted by theora55 at 12:57 PM on February 19, 2016 [2 favorites]