Some Other Citra IPAs, Reviewed

Kelso IPA #4 — B+
Mikkeller Single Hop Citra IPA — B+

Kelso Brewery is one of New York City's few true "local" breweries — by which I mean, they actually brew everything here and don't outsource the majority of the work to Utica. (In fact, they contract brew for Heartland Brewery, which is oddly one of the few brewpubs in NYC. For a city with so many hipsters and beer nerds, it's sad that we're so lacking in actual beer production.)  Anyway, despite their legit local cred, you tend not to see Kelso's brews all that many places — they seem to have a small fraction of the distribution that Sixpoint enjoys. So when I saw that they were brewing an IPA remarkably similar to the IPA I was attempting, I was like "Hey, that's cool." I don't know anything about what went into this IPA other than its hop profile (nor do I know the hop schedule) but nonetheless, Kelso's IPA #4 was a citra-centered ale with cascade and centennial hops backing it. And that is essentially what I did — cascade and centennial are considered extremely similar sister hops, with centennial having a higher alpha acid content, and therefore being most often used as a bittering hop. Which is what I did, though I didn't add in any additional cascade. So anyway — sounded similar; I had to try. Of course, if you've read my assessment of my own beer, you know that it didn't come out anything like your typical, balanced IPA.

I'm not at all surprised that Kelso's citra IPA and Mikkeller's Citra IPA taste nothing like mine, but it is bizarre how little either IPA tastes like what I expect from citra. See, actual citra hops, before they're put into beer, have this remarkable, incredibly fruity mango/peach flavor, but from something that's still distinctly hoppy. It really might be one of my favorite smells in the entire world. I expected citra hops to taste like this once added to beer, but they don't, really. Both Mikkeller and Kelso's citra IPAs taste pretty similar, with what I'm guessing was a more-or-less comparable amount and variety of malts. Both are sort of malty and sweet, as far as IPAs go, similar to other east coast IPAs. Oddly, I think citra benefits from a beer that isn't too sweet, and definitely not too malty. Both seemed like they would have gained from being lighter, letting the juiciness of the hops shine through. Or maybe — as I might have learned from my own citra IPA — citra comes out as kind of tart and grapefruity when it's allowed to contribute to the bitterness. If Kelso and Mikkeller wanted to avoid that, I can see why they would have gone darker. As I concluded before, I think citra is best used, and certainly most unique, as an aroma hop.

As a flavor hop, it's still kind of different in a way I can't quite explain. It still has some fruitiness, but the flavors are all melded together into this rounded, very smooth taste that somehow also has a sharp bitterness at the same time. It's interesting and unexpected, but it's hard to pick out or describe individual flavors. It creates an IPA decidedly unlike other IPAs, and yet it's not as bursting with flavor as I would have expected, or hoped. So, pro's and con's, I guess. It's definitely still a fantastic hop, and both of these beers were among the better IPAs I've had recently. I don't remember either specifically enough to review them individually, but I tasted them a few days apart and was definitely left with the impression that they were quite similar. Single-hop IPAs usually have a hard time achieving complexity, for obvious reasons, so the fact that these were quite good — judged against their general style — just makes me want to see citra used in more creative ways.