I had a NEIPA Saturday at my LHBS, since it was celebrating the first day of its liquor license (it will serve beer, wine and cider made on premises or otherwise commercially made). The NEIPA was brewed by a local brewer who opened shop within the last year (an award-winning homebrewer from my club). I ordered a pint and while it began as a really fruity and hazy drinkable (dare I say enjoyable) beer, the hops definitely weighed on my palate as I progressed through the glass. By the end, I definitely experienced a bitterness that could have been some kind of interplay between the hops and the remaining post-fermentation starches or sugars - kind of biting straight down the middle of the tongue, like an over-bittered (too heavy 60 minute add) rye IPA can become. Whether there was biotransformation at work or not, I cannot say; only that organoleptically speaking, what was pleasant for the first 4-6 ounces, became nearly unpalatable by the final few ounces.
Now I remember why I don't make or drink IPA's more than on rare occasions. My palate is perhaps too delicate to handle the hop blasts, whether early or late in the process.
Topic: Hops can convert starches (Read 6584 times)
