You may be asking why so much beer lately and I’ll tell you because I love it. Two, Other Half just opened in DC and I’ve been excited to try more of their beers since I first had some in NYC. Three, a little bit of stress from the pandemic and having a beer has always been something that relaxes me.
If I needed to offer up a fourth, it would be due to the idea that DC has one of the best beer scenes in the country and the brewers produce some of the best IPAs in the country.
Examples:
Other Half: they are known for their New England IPAs with the hazy, fruity, milkshake thing going on. Try All Green Everything if you see it.
Aslin: They do a few Starfish things that are excellent. Starfish, Double Starfish, and some other variations. Great stuff.
Dogfish isn’t far away.
Bluejack: Lost Weekend is a go-to when I see it.
DC Brau: On the Wings of Armageddon should be a must-try.
Atlas Brew Works: Ponzi.
It goes and goes.
It is amazing that I don’t just drink beer sometimes.
But another favorite is tonight’s beer from Ocelot Brewing in Dulles. They are really great brewers. I’ve yet to have anything I haven’t liked and the staff is fantastic.
To tonight’s beer, Lucky You. Which is also a song by The National. I don’t know if they are related, but considering they’ve designed shirts that look like Led Zepplin album covers and typically have concert videos on in the tasting room, I’ll guess that it isn’t completely misguided.
They’ve also named beers after Wilco songs! So…there is a theme.
Lucky You is a double IPA with 8.2% ABV. It is hopped with Citra hop which is from Yakima, Washington. And, former home of one of my favorite fiction writers, Raymond Carver. If you’ve never read one of his collections of short stories, I’d start with What We Talk About When We Talk About Love.
Back to the hops, when you start having beer and IPAs, you have to start learning about hops because the hops that are being grown are new and interesting and not all hops are the same.
Citra hops are a favorite because of a couple of characteristics:
Nice citrus smell
A good bitter kick
A lot of fruit
I’m still brushing up on my hops, but the Citra hop is an especially sought one by brewers.
I don’t know if I’ve ever had a bad beer that has a dominant Citra hop presence, but I’m sure it’s like a lot of things where it depends on the person doing the brewing.
Anyway, the bouquet on this one is excellent.
This is a very vibrant and alive beer. I mean, I’m having it on the first night of Eastern Standard Time so it has been dark since around 10 AM and the smell of this brings me somewhere tropical.
The first sip is just as lively.
It isn’t super bitter, but you get a nice crispness that makes it sharp like a really great piece of sharp cheddar.
You get a nice mix of fruit as well. Citrus stuff like grapefruit and lime comes through for me.
It is cloudy, but I don’t know if it qualifies as a hazy IPA or unfiltered.
It doesn’t much matter to me.
I like to think of it as just a nice golden color.
This beer is very lively.
This has almost everything I like in a beer: the hops cut through with a crispness and a little bitterness. (My favorites are super piney West Coast style, but you don’t see many of those these days because a lot of people like the lighter, fruiter stuff.)
It is fresh and that matters.
It isn’t super boozy even though at 8.2% it isn’t a light beer.
It has a nice color…so it is pretty in the cup. The label and the branding are nice.
This is a really solid beer.
Would I serve this to friends?
Hell yeah!
Would I buy more of this?
Absolutely.
Could this be house beer material?
I’m going with a definitely!
My rating on this one 93 out of 100.
I may even steer it up a few notches to the 94-95 range.