Time to swing the old geography around to show Ohio some love for something other than eating competitions and the award for most Big Dog t-shirts sold per capita. This beer pops up every once in a while on the top 100 and I figured I would give the midwest a shrift to see how their big guns stack up against California IPAs.
White Rajah is within the same lineage as Maharaja from beers that just toss around Indian terms with careless abandon.
White Rajah IPA
The Brew Kettle Taproom & Smokehouse / Production Works
Ohio, United States
Style | ABV
American IPA | 6.80% ABV
A: Deep orange with amber hues in the center, 1/2 finger carbonation, moderate lacing, a bit darker than most ipas, but a bit cloudier. Single IPAs are kinda like telling your friends about the hot Korean girl that you met, all adjectives make it end up seeming more pedestrian and unimpressive as a result.
IPA cant be walez, hurr derrr.
S: There is a bright aggressive hop profile, cirtusy and bitter to the nose. Not quite overbearing in the juniper/herbal notes, but still that pesky pine pokes its head in like an uncircumsized penis, all conspicuous and out of place.
T: This beer has a very balanced hop profile, not overbearing, not entirely cirtusy either, very light with a quick bitter finish, a profile that transfers from lemon to grassy and are similar to those other poorly done imperial/double IPAs, without a long standing lingering hop profile. Those god. damn. pinecones round things out and just overstay their welcome. This is pretty robust for a single IPA, but not my favorite offering when Sculpin and some other stellar IPAs are available on the reg.
When you have a nice, sessionable IPA, you get this warm hoppy feeling like snugs from a baby sloth.
M: The mouthfeel is exactly where it should be for the style, light finish with a biscuity middle to it that lingers for a bit, doesnt overcoat the mouth so that you welcome the next sip, almost to the point of drinking it too fast. I prefer this to many other jankier double IPAs because I feel like I can drink this without so much of a traumatic profile and continue to keep ruining people’s shit on Puzzle Quest.
D: I dont usually throw this around, but its an incredibly drinkable beer, it feels like a bolder pale ale simply due to its Trojan horse character that sends the abv and aggressive fast moving hops right into the Troy of your mouth. I am certainly able to drink well beyond the 12oz bottle and I think 3 would be perfect to get ready for a custody hearing. It’s an even more dangerous candidate given the relatively afforable price. Good luck finding a series of bottles to support that endeavor. I enjoy this beer but in LA its not too simple to find this beer, or even at all, so slap the Fedex guy on the ass and tell him to move bricks in the trap.
Too many IPAs will put your liver on swole, knock you down like a Goldberg spear.
Narrative: They said that after the nuclear war, there would be no vegetation, no life, just nuclear winter. How ironic, those shortsigted botanists, if they only knew. The hop plant thrives on depleted uranium. The nuclear war didn’t produce endless expanses of rubble, it created a lush verdant world covered in hop flowers. It stings my eyes to go outside with all the hop oils in the air and I leave the communal well smelling like Burning Man. I guess this is God’s sick joke, cover the earth in a beautiful, fragrant, unusable flower, what with all the malt and barley dead. Talk about peanut butter with no jam. Hopmageddon affected us all, but it affected Chardonnay drinkers worst of all.
dontdrinkbeer 