Baird / Ishii / Stone Japanese Green Tea IPA
Vital Statistics
From the brewer
Our style of brewing has always been about taking chances. It’s an extension of our “What if” mentality, wherein we ask ourselves what would happen if we did things differently in the brewhouse, such as fermenting with a different strain of yeast or, in the case of this beer, incorporating whole-leaf green tea imported from Japan. The answer, embodied in this IPA when we first released it in 2011, was something truly magnificent, delicious and well worth brewing again. But what if we changed it up a bit? This time around, we exchanged Pacifica hops from New Zealand for Helga hops from Australia. The result is an IPA that’s as bright, herbaceous and bitingly hoppy as the one that’s had our fans requesting its return ever since its depletion from store shelves, but with a modern, hop-driven twist that makes this second draft unique and tasty in its own right.
Average Scores
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2015 release
The mix is a little bit surprising at first, but I kind of liked it. The IPA hops and resin flavors are mild and do not overpower the tea flavors. The green tea add a touch of sweetness that pleasantly compliment the beer. It also adds a touch of bitterness that's refreshingly different from the usual hops bitterness.
2015 release
A very interesting IPA with clear hop resin and bitterness that somehow doesn't overpower the green tea. That shows up as a grassy, matcha latte-like sweetness that both mellows the hops but also adds a bitterness of its own. That tea fragrance is super-present in the smell as well. It doesn't exactly go down easy but it was definitely worth trying.