Episode: 4643
Title: HPR Beer Garden 13 - Triple IPA
Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr4643/hpr4643.mp3
Transcribed: 2026-07-31 16:15:50 (official HPR transcript)

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This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 4643, for 2026-05-20
Today's show is entitled, "HPR Beer Garden 13 - Triple IPA"
The host is Kevie and the duration is 00:30:12
The flag is Clean, and the license is CC-BY-SA
The summary is "Dave and Kevie talk about Triple IPAs."
Hello and welcome to another exciting episode of Hacker Public Radio and this is the HPR
Beer Garden, our regular beer style review show that we have been doing now for, well this
is episode number 13, so I'll let you count, my name is Dave, I am joined this time around
by Kevin, who's my usual partner in crime, hello Kevin, hello I'm very well, after
the long winter months we, they're believed to be sun on the horizon, we're been told,
we've been told, so we're starting a new era tonight, are we not, are I new section, let's see,
oh we are, I mean, yes, the sun is coming out, we're, we're been told, we're not, we're promised
yet, not for ourselves, I did see something in the sky, I mean, I know that where, where you are,
you tend not to, but I did say you see something in the sky today, but the temperature did not
correspond with the appearance of said ball of nuclear fission, which ever, I don't know,
no fusion, it would definitely be fusion, you do not want fission happening in the sun,
have I just invented a word as well, as a solid just, possibly I haven't, it could be right,
I don't know, I, I don't do words either, as you will know, I hope, over the last 13
episode, anyway, what we are going to be doing this time around, as Kevin quite rightly
points out, we are starting to head towards the summer months, very slowly, we're going to start
to adapt our styles slightly, and we're going to head a bit more towards what you
may consider to be summer hails. But again, slowly. So, I'm going to pass over to
Kevin, because the style that we are going to be looking at this time is the triple
IPA. So, Kevin, tell us about the triple IPA.
Triple IPA right now does seem to be something that's actually quite difficult to get.
It's a plenty of my usual websites are listing them, but they were nearly all at
a stock. However, I did find one eventually. So, this show almost didn't happen in this
forum.
Can I just say it is the complete opposite? Knowing how much fun it took me to get a
Baltic Porter for the last episode. When I went looking for a triple IPA, I went into
the supermarket, I waterped the shelf, picked it off the shelf, put it in the basket.
There was like three of them up there.
Nope, absolutely none here in the local supermarket, and I even did check. We've got two
petrostations, which have very good selection of beers, and neither of them had them, and
I'm like, this is getting depressing. And like I said, I even went to all my usual ones,
and quite a few of them had it listed, but it's head out of stock, and I'm like, oh.
So, we'll just have to wait and see how our listeners get on. But anyway, well, a triple IPA
can also be known. And actually, I didn't know this until I did my homework. Can also be known
as an imperial IPA. I had heard the term before, but I did not realize that they were actually
the same beer. Essentially, this is a very hopeful word IPA. And it's one where it's a relatively
recent beer in terms of the styles that they're at. Now, unfortunately, although I don't want
to cover double IPAs, you really cannot even talk about triple IPAs without
conventioning double IPAs. The double IPAs themselves emerged about the mid-1990s, and this was
just due to a growing demand of people wanting more. Brewerish had already kind of made
American IPA, which was a bolder version of the English IPA. However, they wanted more. So,
double IPAs came about. And it was in the notice, although one of the first ones was actually
made in Britain, we actually have the West Coast of America to thank for this, because it was
their brewerish over there that were actually pushing the boundaries further and further. To see how
much they can push the limits of the hopes and the alcohol strength. The first one to release was
actually Ipswich Bruins triple IPA, which came out in 2007. This was the first one to use the
name triple IPA. It may not be the first to actually produce a triple IPA, but the first one to use
the name. The other one that came out in the roughly the same time, but on the other side of the
pond, was pizza port brewing company in southern California, they produced swamis IPA.
And this wasn't actually labeled as a triple IPA, but was classed as a triple IPA
after people started using the term. Triple IPAs were based upon pushing the boundaries further
on the double IPAs. The brewer started using larger quantities of hopes and very often multiple and
more dry hoping additions. And of course, this increased both alcohol level and also very much
the bitterness level. So what makes a triple IPA? Well, sadly looking at the beer Bible,
it doesn't actually even mention it. So I had a bit more research online and according to several
different sources that still seem to agree, there's a few things that are not necessary every one,
but majority of them should be there. First one is alcohol content to be classed such a
triple IPA, it needs to be at least 9.5%. Usually the upper limit would be up both the 12,
but you can't get some slightly higher. But that was three, a ways much stronger than a standard
double IPA, and certainly more stronger than an IPA. The other thing is the bitterness, which is IBU
international bitterness units must also exceed 100. As far as flavor school, it should be top
dominant at both flavor and also on the aroma. I'm not saying it's the only thing, but that should
be straightforward, but also it should be noted that up malt back end should be there to provide
some balance to stop this becoming a sour. The body and mouth feel as well should typically
be creamy and never watery. When it comes to appearance, they often range anywhere between
pill gold to debamber, and usually as well differing from a lot of IPAs, the head is usually as
well more persistent and should last longer. So those were the guidance that I found in terms of
beer, like I said, quite a modern beer, really, only 19 years old from the first time that
term was actually used. Maybe not the first time it was actually brewed, but we have, like I said,
adventurous brewers and the craft beer market, because this was something that the big companies
weren't even interested. It was, it's expensive to make uses a lot of ingredients, and it's quite
a high price per serving. So this was something that the bigger companies would not even have
been interested to do. So we've got the craft brewers of the world to thank. And specifically,
as I said, although California was mentioned, Portland does always the one that seems to keep on
getting referred to as the ones who were pushing the boundaries. So we do actually have a lot
of thank for the Portland craft brewers who seem to drive this innovation. That is essentially all
I was able to find. Did you make any advances on that, Dave? No, no, whatsoever. I am slightly intrigued
by the definition items that you read out, because the one I have for this evening, although it
does actually say on it, it is a triple. Atty falls quite short of one of the criteria you mentioned,
which one no. Well, I could tell you about mine if you like. Yes, you go for it. Okay,
right then. So first of all, I should tell you about my glass. My the glass I'm using today is
actually from the Sheffield Indy beer feast, which happened last weekend. And as part of the
ticket price, you get to give it a glass, because of course you need to put your beer somewhere.
And it's a really nice glass. It's what would you call that a stubby? A stubby pint glass?
Yeah, that's right. Yeah. Yeah. So it's a full point glass, but it's like the shorter than
the standard big glass you would get in a pub. So I should be serving in that. The beer I've got
is actually from the really formerly known as Brudog, because Brudog are in a not a great place
at the moment, unfortunately. And it is the triple hazy Jane that I've come for. ABV on this is
9.5. So right at the very entry level of the the ABV that you mentioned in your criteria earlier.
And it doesn't say on the can it self. So I went and had a look, according to
Untapped. The ABV for this ale is 45. I don't know then.
Whether I have not got a triple. Well, I will actually caveat that the website that I actually got
this from. It does say that it would be expected that the majority, but some may not include
particular ones. So it's the majority. Okay. In the description, which I presume has come from Brudog
themselves, it does put it down as a New England Imperial IPA. So by definition, that would
make it a triple. According to the descriptions of this particular beer, it does say,
triple hazy is a wash with a melee of soft right fruit flavors spanning from peach to mango
to abricot. Beneath the onslaught of juicy hops, a low background bitterness that's
complemented by flashes of light resin and glimmering hints of pine, all cumble culminating in
a 9.5% chorus that's both full-bodied and super smooth. I have had this before. I have locked it
on untapped three times after tonight or before times, and the reviewer put in there is widened
varied. One of them has said, nothing but gorgeous. And another one said, I would have been happier
with half as much, which is something we have discussed before with regards to our ABV beers.
Hazy Jane is one of their staples, has been for for a long time, along with things like
punk IPA. They do a double, they do a triple, they do varied flavoured versions of the hazy Jane,
some of which are actually really, really nice. I was going to say, I'm hoping a lot on this,
but Kim thought that before, I can't really say that. But, unusually, for the beer garden, this is
in a can, not a bottle. So it will sound slightly different when open it. Wow, wow. I think the
overwhelming aroma there is peach and there's a lot of it, but you can also smell the hops in there
and the fact that it is really quite boozy just from the aroma alone. Weirdly, this is making
me hungry. I can't explain that, but that is really nice. Let me give it a pour and we'll see what
it looks like. Okay, not very noisy at all. So that is kind of moderately hazy. You can almost
see me through it, but not quite. So it's a light haze and I'm not getting as much aroma from
it as I did from when I first opened it, but still the overwhelming fragrance is from peach.
Maybe with a little bit of the dry smell of apricot, apricot is one of those really weird fruits
that is really incredibly juicy, but the natural feel of it is quite dry. And I find that with
the aroma a bit as well. So let's take a quick at this and see how well I remember it. Wow.
What was it you said about? It had to be creamy and not watery. Yes, how that was one of the ones.
Most feel should be creamy. Smooth and creamy, not watery. Full of body, smooth and creamy.
Yeah, it's there. It's almost almost oily. There's a definite residual feel to it, even
after you've taken it in. The flavours again, lots of lovely tropical fruit flavours in there,
mostly peach, getting a little bit of apricot, the hot. I know it's supposed to be a much more
bitter flavour to it. The bitnese is there, but it doesn't hit you, doesn't smack you in the face,
as you would probably expect that it should. Having said that, the bitnese persists. So even now,
30 45 seconds after I took that last swig, I'm still got the bitnese. I'm still holding onto
that bitter feeling and the creaminess in the mouth feel as well, which is incredibly pleasant.
It is boozy. It is quite a heavy punchy feel and flavour to it. I will probably stick with
my previous review in saying that I think it probably is a bit much to have this in a 440
can. I might be easier in a 330. I will let you know that once I finished it, if indeed,
I have finished it by the end of this episode. This is incredibly nice and just going purely by the
definition of the criteria that you mentioned earlier. I think this definitely takes
most of the boxes into a very, very pleasant trick like hey. Good. What have you got?
It's northern monk, glory, ethereal triple IPA 10%. There's a whole swath of writing on there that I
in a tempting to read. It's white on white. Who the heck, seriously? Who decided that this will be good?
Yeah, I didn't know. So forget it. That's all the information I've got. It does see triple IP
and to try this, I've got a glass, my sister got me as a pack. This is an American IPA glass
apparently and it's very thin stemmed at the bottom and then quite a bulbous shape at the top.
Like I just almost got chulip kind of on the top. So yeah, so I'll give this a wee try. Mine's a
well fruity kind of citrusy, but not dormant at the citrusy peachy passion fruit passion fruit.
That's what I'm getting. It's got a bitter and it's got that sharp darkness to it. It's passion fruit.
That's what I'm getting. Okay, right. Not an overly big head there. Not quite an aggressive
poor. Similar to yours, it's not totally cloudy. There is clarity in there. But it's pretty
similar. Yeah, kind of similar. Oh, no, the boozeiness opens up in the glass. There's definitely
a boozy smell of that. And to the point that the fruit's almost gone, we're wee bit on the
back end, but it's only faint. That's very boozy. My word that is boozy strong. Smailing.
Right, let's see how this goes. They need to ramp that up in the fruity nest flavor. They've
not masked that booze at all. That's really strong. Strong alcohol levels quite sweet.
There's some of that passion fruit and maybe some slight kind of citrusiness in the back end,
but it's almost like it's just been, it's been home to doubt. It's been quite and down.
And retaining head, it's gone. No retention there, whatever. My the said is completely gone.
Yeah. Now, given the description, I was expecting a blast of hops. I'm not getting that. It's
not bitter. It's sweet. It's a sweet, like a boozy, a busy, sweety. You know, like a kind of sugarty, very
sweet. I would have been talking like a la cure, kind of sweet. The calamanshare, birdy, sweet,
not the middle, but you know, the hard boiled bit around the side. But imagine that being
dipped in alcohol. That's what it reminds me of. The depressing thing is that's very easy to drink.
A 10% that's dangerous. I could see, you know, somebody giving me that out of the fridge or
something on a whole day. And I would knock back the can without realizing what it was. You know,
it's that kind of way. But you do tell it's strong. It just lacks in the flavor. I was really expecting
this to be a hobby, bitter hobby, kind of, woo, you know, kind of boarding of that and then fruitiness
coming through. I don't know, is it the fact that they've just tried to tame it down and they've just
done it too well. It's not a clawing sweetness. It's like, you know, if you have a hard boiled sweet
and when you get through that maybe it might be quite a sour sweetness on the outside and then
you've got a sweetness of the hard boiled part. That's what it reminds me of. Like a good old
fashion church sweet. That kind of idea. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. And with that, that's that's what it actually
might. It's very old describing a beer like that. But that's what this reminds me of. But with a boozy
noted. Yeah. I don't know how I feel. I think I'd like to try more triple IPAs. I don't know if
I've got that finest yet. Okay. I mean, I wouldn't say I've had a huge number of triple IPAs in my
beer drinking career. Well, that's how Fraser never thought I'd ever say.
Triple IPAs and Imperial IPA. If you try and equate an Imperial IPA to an Imperial Stalt,
you are going to be sorely disappointed. When you were talking about the sweetness that you were
experiencing, I immediately switched to thinking towards an Imperial Stalt 11, 12, 13% where they are,
a lot more sweet and syrupy and viscous than their lower alcohol counterparts. But I don't know
that there's something about the one that you're having at the moment and the way you're describing
it and looking at some other descriptions that I've seen on untapped, there seems to be this
there's something missing via you be going on with it. Definitely. Yes. I would agree with it.
Which which seems really disappointing and certainly not in keeping with my own limited experiences
of a triple IPA. I think if you're looking to to try and expand on your triple IPA experiences,
then it certainly is worth shopping around for something to expand on the repertoire.
Oh yeah. If you take any beer style and you're going to have five or six beers from the
same style, they all would be fundamentally different in some way or another. And that's why it's
really important to say that I'm not going to turn around. It's a triple IPA so rubbish because I
didn't enjoy the one I had. No, you can't do that because at the end of the day there's going to
be good and bad in every example of beers. I'm going to try another one and it may be worth
I may actually do point out if I review another one. But certainly based on this one, it's a bit of
a late date. But again, I'm not saying that's a style. That's just the beer itself. Yes,
absolutely. I completely understand that. I think this is why it's important to keep trying
with other ones in that style. I know with interest that this has a lower IPU than my one did.
It's I looked it up on untapped myself, which now is like this is where the shot like I said,
there's no bitterness to that. I've had, you know, kind of laggers and things been more bitter than
that. Okay, that that's really interesting. I'm disappointed for you to be fair. I think I was
expecting slightly more from mine as well. Here's a suggestion then. Is it worth at some point
in the not too distant future, whether this is like this time next year or as we're coming out of
summer to come back and try and revisit Triple IPI with a different beer? Possibly might
might be worth putting it in the reserve queue. That may have one for the reserve. That's a good
show. Yeah. So just so that with, I mean, I'd be happily tried again. All right. I'll tell you what
then I'll do my scoring first so we end on a slightly better note. I mean, okay. So as far as a
score goes, it's not terrible. I'm not pulling it. I'm going to finish this. Would I go out
and get one again? No. Would I take one of our first probably? No, to be fair for the honest. So
this is straight down a little five, five at a time. You know, it's not making me go, but it's not
making me go. That was quite tasty either. Yeah. No. I get that. A judging by your review, I think that
is actually quite generous in the ground scheme of things. So okay. I think with this one,
because it seems to be promising more than it, than it actually delivered in purely in terms of the
flavour. The aroma was there. The boozyness was there. The creaminess was there. It was just the right
amount of bitterness. But actually, if you stop on an analyse it, just a little bit. I find myself
asking the question, is that it? Like there is something missing. So I think I'm probably going to
go down the, it was good, but didn't blow me away. So I'm going to give it six and a half out of ten.
Yeah. So I must admit actually, yeah. Like I said, this was a bit disappointing. Now you may be thinking,
why in the world would you strip over, over, stay peer double? Would the reason actually being
was, we are still cold up here. We still want some high alcohol stuff. So we need a winter warmer
still. And I know officially it's spring, but it's dashed cold up here. It's three degrees today.
That's ridiculous for our two cold for this time of year. Yeah. And yet weirdly, the temperature on
Wednesday, down in the deep south, where I am Yorkshire, we're going to be seeing temperatures
of up to 17 degrees. That's how you do summer for us. What are you talking about? 17.
So I don't know what, what temperature you're expecting in the outer quantities, but hopefully
it will not be interesting. That may be not. Maybe not, but maybe you'll get like six or seven.
Sorry, how to get that in there. That's how we look, see why I can find it's just getting a
storm. No way. Western miles. Wednesday. 11. Wow. You're going to blamage the dollar figures.
Well, every degree. It was three degrees today, and I went to work at, uh,
how past eight in the morning. And it was hailstones. It's like, that's a huge difference.
Well, according to this, you've got strong winds and heavy rain gusts have up to 50 miles an hour.
That's, that's kind of how it was. That's not strong winds. That's, that's just a good
drying day in the water. It is for here. Not yet. I'm trying. Yeah, I don't think even 50 miles
now winds when it's peddling a demo rain is going to dry your clothes. Not peddling of no. No.
But, uh, yes, yeah, we were, we were experiencing this kind of wind to the point where I had to
take my antenna down. And normally I'm like, yeah, it'll be fine. But no, I was so I was worried.
So it did that to come down. But yeah, nice. Okay. Well, now we have had a couple of items of
feedback, certainly from the Hacker Public Radio feed that I have spotted. Do we have any feedback
from anywhere else that you've seen? I had a comment from Archie 72. It was on Masterdom. And he said,
this, it's not just a beer podcast. It's a history lesson on how much he enjoyed it. So yeah,
that was a, a call out. And he had just actually made spoken back and forth. Just saying that
how much it's actually been enjoying the city. So yeah, great to hear. So thanks very much. Yes,
thank you very much indeed. The history lesson thing is, is very pointy as to actually because
it doesn't matter whether I'm listening to you having done your research on particular beer styles
like you did today, whether I'm going and finding this stuff out. I find I'm learning a lot
a huge amount about the beers that I'm consuming, things that I never would have known before. But
actually, I would almost go as far as to say they hadn't had they helped to enhance the experience
of enjoying the beer, knowing where it came from, knowing how it came to be, knowing how it came
about or kind of goes into. It's not just about cracking up in the beer and drinking it.
There's a lot more to be aware of. Yeah. And I really, really like that. Yeah, I taught
negative with that. Yes, there's just something about it. It can actually make you appreciate as
well. You know, when you think about the background of the beer, where it comes from, what the
climate's like, even. It's probably a reason that you don't see many Australian African beers
over in Scotland because there's very much different climates, there are different things.
I mean, you get the appreciation of it. So yeah, I totally get it. Yeah, absolutely.
I mean, I also had some feedback on episode nine of the beer garden, which was where we went
through barley wine and ale man left us a comment on the HPR website for that episode. And he says,
I've had HPR in my feed for a long time. Always hope for that something will spark with me.
Then you too come up with beer garden. And you like what I like. I'm writing from Oklahoma,
where a state legislator funded her Senate campaign with money from the liquor distributors
and exchange for monopoly control over what we drink. But I think before the law changed,
I actually had some Scotch silly, which was the barley wine style that I had. Now, this last bit,
I don't know whether it was a typo or whether it was intended as as emphasis. I'm going to go
with the latter. He ends his comment with anyway, really enjoy your show. So thank you, ale man,
for that feedback. It's really good to hear that people are enjoying what we do. We're doing it for fun.
The moment it stops being fun, we'll stop doing it, but I can't really can't imagine
happening because beer. No, I totally agree. Yes, so we also did actually have some
on way back to HPR beer garden five, half of ice in. And okay, then this is my fault. I totally
misspelled half of ice in and the post is by Gan Anam. The word half of ice, half of ice
and does not exist in German. The correct composite known is half of ice in from
hefe, yeast and wise in wheat. However, that ar German words, half of it for oats and wise in some
homonoims like wise men, manners to indicate that do not have any relationship to be at. The word
hefe or does not exist in German. I do have a response. Thanks, Gan. Thank you for pointing this out.
I hadn't noticed the spelling error. I shall attempt to get it sorted. I did drop a friendly
head janitor, Ken Animil, and he's corrected it. I do believe. He's corrected it in the body,
not the text. They're not the title. I don't know if that would lead to problems if he actually
adjusted that. I'm not sure. But we do apologize. It wasn't deliberate. It was just me. That's just
my fault. The thing is, was obviously Gan is absolutely 100% correct. I wouldn't have spotted it.
No, because we tend to say, we do tend to say it when you get it in this company, hefe or vice,
and you do tend to put that ar in this. It's just said it's, I've just sped it for natively.
Yeah. Yeah. German as a language is quite complex in terms of its phonetics. It's a very easy
mistake to make. But please, if we do make mistakes, please do tell us. Absolutely. We're not
precious at all. We're more than happy to be corrected for things we get wrong. And I'm pretty
certain there's a lot more stuff we've got wrong than we haven't been told about yet. So certainly me.
Yes, one of both of us. Both of us. We're better to be, but I'm housekeeping as well. I was asked
by Ken to always introduce the next few ones we've got. So the next ones we've got are coming up
are strong lagger. So that is anything 7% above. Double IPA, I learned Belgian blonde. So
it's our next three. So if you fancy joining him with us, then yes, grab yourself one of those.
Like I said, I get the feeling we've done this in the world. We're probably shouldn't an IPA
first, then double-entrable, not working backwards. But it'll be fun to do, yes.
Right. So yeah, if you want to get in touch with ourselves, probably the best way is just to
comment on the show notes, page. You can also connect us on an untapped. If you would like to
join in with a beard rig and experience, links again in the show notes. So if that is us,
it is joining tomorrow for another excellent episode of Haka Public Radio.
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