The selection for DIPA of the Year (DOY) 2022, chosen from the 4PAX “Must Try Before You Die” category of superior tasting double IPA beers, is:
STONE COLD STUNNER. Idiom Brewing Company, Frederick, Maryland produced this superb Imperial IPA. The sample tested by the 4PAX weighed in at a whopping 10.4% ABV. This intensely hoppy West Coast Style Triple IPA is piney, citrusy, and remarkably dry with a crisp, bitter finish, it strikes the perfect balance between complexity and drinkability.
Idiom Brewing Company began their craft brewing journey during a trip to visit friends who had recently moved to a small town outside Portland, Oregon, 10 years ago. During that trip, they hiked the trails near Multnomah Falls, saw the sites in downtown Portland and drank some of the finest beer that Oregon had to offer. While there, their friend invited them to brew a stove-top batch; an Irish Red, to be exact. They happily agreed and loved every bit of it! They came home with an undying passion for craft beer and brewing. That initial stove-top batch has evolved into brewing countless recipes which have spanned a wide range of styles and experimental flavors. The rest, as they say, is history!
Idiom Brewing Company has a simple goal in mind – that craft beer is both a way of life and an art form; ultimately an expression of themselves. These expressions in beer allow them to create new experiences, and new flavors, for their customers. While their recipes have been honed over many years, they continue to innovate by utilizing new and/or experimental hops, local ingredients, and unique flavor profiles, to stretch the limits of their imagination, and that of the customer’s palate.
TASTE QUALITY ANALYSIS
To illustrate the difference in the overall taste quality between the selected DIPA of the Year (DOY) and that of the other samples in the 4PAX data base, we generated the following figure. It shows the average grades (solid dots) for each of the four taste parameters for the selected DIPA of the Year versus the dispersion in the average grades for the remaining 4PAX data samples.
LEGEND:
- RED Dot ( Solid ) – average APPEARANCE;
- GREEN Dot ( Solid ) – average AROMA;
- BLUE Dot ( Solid ) – average MOUTHFEEL;
- BLACK Dot ( Solid ) – average FLAVOR;
- ‘X—X’ – measured spread, [ MEAN, +/- 1 SIGMA ].
TAKEAWAY
In terms of which taste characteristics influenced our selection of STONE COLD STUNNER as the 2022 DIPA of the Year (DOY), measurements show that Appearance, followed by Mouthfeel and Flavor, in that order, produced the superb taste quality characteristic of this year’s DOY.