Monday 27 March 2017

Black IPA, the dark side of Iisalmi by Olvi


Unfiltered & unpasteurized, opaquely black beer, 4,7% ABV, EBU 59, EBC 100, Plato 11%. Hops used are Cascade, Target, Yellow Sub and TNT [!] The blogger is familiar only with the first two. Target may well be the bittering hop and the last two the hoax of today.

Pleasantly crisp and sweetish licorice-hoppy aroma with the hops clearly hovering in the background. High expectations are certainly aroused.

The first sip, however, immediately ruins all the beautiful expectations to the hilt. Meager, watery body with repugnantly burnt taste. This unbalanced and abhorrent stuff certainly went quickly down the kitchen drain. Hops do not save a beer like this, actually they work to the contrary. I had to brush my teeth thoroughly to rid myself of the bitter burnt black bottom!

It seems to me, the blogger, as if the recipe here lay in the belief - definitely a wrong one - that opaquely black beer is simply made by painting a pale beer black using exclusively-and-enough the blackest paint available, black malt.

In my, the blogger's, notion the malt base of any Porter or Black IPA ought to include a delicate combination of other darker side malts together with black malt or maybe roasted barley. This would also lead to a higher original extract than 11% Plato and thus to a lower degree of fermentation imparting the necessary body - now lacking - at the fixed 4,7% ABV.






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