Gaspar - An IPA From Not-Here

Yeah, I know IPAs not an American original or anything, but still. The stateside brewers pretty much hijacked the style, for better or worse, by sheer force of will. We sure do loves our beers BIG here, and the style’s perfectly suited to BIGness, what with its natural hoppiness that we can just tweak and tweak to get even BIGger. It’s at the point now where foreign markets are brewing IPAs just to expand their US market.

For instance, Belgium. A country steeped in the brew tradition, the Belgian tastes run towards the subtler end of the spectrum. The IPAs we call fascinating, they might call over-hopped. But a few breweries over there have been experimenting with the style, largely for export - the Belgians won’t have it.

So dig this Gaspar, a Belgian IPA offering. It claims to be the hoppiest beer in Belgium, which is a loaded statement if there ever was one. I checked out the reviews on Beer Advocate, just to get a sense of what people thought about it. And it’s funny. The collective BA impression is that somebody must be lying to them somewhere along the line, what with the beer not being as bitter as the IPAs they’ve come to know and love.

Here’s the thing, though: this is a hoppy beer, no doubt about it. But the hops here aren’t the same American hops found in the US. These are Belgian hops, more citrus-y then flat out bitter. If you go into this beer knowing that, you maybe won’t set unrealistic expectations for it. You can sit back and just enjoy it on its own merit, rather than comparing it unfairly to something American.

And it’s easy to enjoy it, that bit taken care of. It bites your tongue with those citrus hops teeth, but it’s all wrapped in this coat of lingering sweetness. Most of the real bitterness comes at the finish, rebounding back over all that sweetness, so even after you’ve swallowed it, your tongue is teased with this rotation of alternating flavors. Very cool.

If you can get it out of your head that all IPAs are created with the same intentions, you’ll dig this beer. You’ll dig it for what it is, not for what you want it to be.

dJp

Tags: beer, Belgian, Belgium, IPA
Category: Beer Reviews, The Beer Blog