I am just blown away by this thread. The earliest we get Torpedo is 6 months after bottling. It's, seriously, totally great and absolutely drinkable. If you don't wanna sell that beer that was bottled a little over _three months ago_ feel free to send it to me, I'll pay your postage.
LOL. I'm pretty amused by this as well.
A
good IPA should be perfectly fine at three months. An extraordinarily well made one can be wonderful
long after that.
It's true that some lovers of so called "American IPA" are fresh-obsessed, but it doesn't mean that those beers are automatically 'over the hill' after a few months. In fact, the fresh obsession is certainly a good thing for the brewers since they don't have to tie up tank space with traditional aging, and modern palates have come to accept...even demand...the end result of quick turnaround.
Quite a few people I know actually prefer their IPAs with a bit more time on them (again, this assumes that they're well made...some are simply
not).
Not that I'm
that much of a stickler for 'authenticity' but IPA was, after all, originally an aged style (aka, 'stock ale') to begin with. I rarely drink my homebrewed IPA any younger than 8 months; it's brewed with that factor in mind, and after the long aging it's hoppier and more aromatic than any modern commercial one I've yet tried.
I guess in the end, different folks look for different things in their favorite beers. And the choice these days is unprecedented.