Bad Hare Day
Style: Double India Pale Ale
ABV: 7.8%
Presentation: 6 packs of 341 ml brown bottles
Brewery: Alley Kat Brewing Co. exclusive for Sherbrooke Liquor
Country: Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
KANPAI! w/ Jeff Werstiuk
This one’s for you dedicated Hopheads out there, and the adventurous amongst the crowd. The name, the label…..loaded with puns, I’ll let you connect the dots yourself. Instead let’s start off with pedigree: Bad Hare Day was the first Double IPA brewed in Alberta, back in the Spring of 2008, and remains a rotating seasonal offering in the Sherbrooke beer pantheon, and currently on the shelves in its second run. I’ll be honest with you folks, this is my personal favourite style, as rare as it is around these parts, although it took me years and years to develop a palate that appreciates its intense hoppy nature. I’m well aware that many people out there consider India Pale Ales as too much to handle as it is, trust me, I used to be amongst you on that one.
In the case of a “Double” or “Imperial” India Pale Ale (an IPA being a hoppy enough style on its own!), we are pushing the ticket and adding even more hops and bitterness to produce this style. Truly an invention of the American craft brewing scene, more specifically the West coast (where the mentality usually tends to be go big or go home to say the least), the Double IPA was said to have originated in the mid-1990’s at a brewery in San Diego completely by accident, when a recipe was slightly botched and then entirely overcompensated for. The end result was the epitome of hophead heaven. They tasted the finished product and deemed it not only drinkable, but worthy of mass consumption and repeated production. Yet another historical incident of a happy accident that became a groundbreaking milestone.
For a lot of people an India Pale Ale seems like a daunting style, hoppy and bitter and beyond the capacity of where their taste buds are able to humanly endure, whereas a Double IPA should be twice as intimidating based on theory. Fair enough, yet allow me to bust and elaborate on certain myths and misconceptions. First off most DIPA’s are produced with American variations of hops, it being an American invention in the first place. A lot of people tend to overlook that the predominant domestic varieties of hops tend to be the citrusy ones, lending characteristics of tangerine and lemon, to the more common and familiar grapefruit qualities. Also being rounded out by earthy pine notes. And whereas many regular IPA’s can be a bit on the lopsided scale sliding dramatically towards the bitter end of the spectrum, what makes Double IPA’s more unique is that with more hops comes a necessity of more malt to help keep it all in check, if not to lend a more cohesive balance. A proper DIPA requires a strong enough backbone of malt to help keep everything in check. From earthy grainy malt, to sweet toffee malts or anything in-between, it will be there to greet you up front in the flavour even if the hops manage to get a leg up and a head start on things too. Sometimes they can even seem like young tasting barleywines.
Given that sort of background, let’s see how Bad Hare Day holds its own in light of it all.
Allow about 10 minutes of warming up after pulling a bottle right out of the fridge, there’s a lot of flavour and aroma to be discovered within. A pint glass will be the most ideal receptacle as well, unless you want to accentuate the aroma more, then grab an oversized snifter or wine glass. When poured the appearance is an inviting hazy deep amber, topped by a tall spongy cream coloured head that slowly settles to a thick frothy cap. Things jump up several levels in the aroma with an intense hoppy profile revealing notes of citrus, blood orange, pink grapefruit, even some papaya and pineapple, rounded out with some fresh pine. When I close my eyes it almost smells like a bowl full of gummy bears. A bit of bready caramel malt manages to come through in the flavour before the hops grab the spotlight for the rest of the show. Yet it’s fairly refined, not out of control. It tastes like a few layers of hops as well, with the citrus coming up first, but notes of floral and herbal hops wash up to shore as well on the finish. The lingering aftertaste is more herbal, but also combined with white grapefruit rind, and a bit of sticky pine. Yet as it warms even more the malt becomes even more apparent, adding a refreshing balance to it all. The mouthfeel is medium-bodied, but somewhat sticky on the finish. Complex yet refined, this is a big beer with manners.
Keeping that in mind this bold beer requires fairly intense foods to pair up with. For the cheese lover this balanced hoppy beer will compliment something sharp like Gorgonzola better than most wines. Tex-Mex and Thai cuisine, with its contrast of chills and lime, spice and citrus, have also found their match with a beer like Bad Hare Day. If dessert is on the menu consider something rich and savoury such as carrot cake, cream cheese icing and all.
The next steps in the cooler:
From This Brewery:
Aprikat
Full Moon Pale Ale
Alley Kat Amber
Charlie Flint’s Original Lager
Olde Deuteronomy
Pumpkin Pi Spiced Ale
Also From Sherbrooke:
Sherbrooke Shamrock
Chocolate Cherry Ostiarius
Pi Jiu
Aaiieeeeeeeeee Caramba!
Van Helsing’s All Natural Mouthwash
In-Style:
Dogfish Head 90 Minute IPA
Lagunitas Hop Stoopid
Rogue XS India Pale Ale
He’Brew Bittersweet Lenny’s R.I.P.A.
Hardcore IPA - BrewDog
Storm IPA - BrewDog
Half Pints Humulus Ludicrous