
Beer: Double Homestyle
Brewery: Bearded Iris Brewing (Nashville, TN)
Style: IPA – Imperial/Double New England
8.2% ABV / 0 IBU
Brooklyn’s Other Half seems like the brewery to beat when it comes to IPAs, but south of the Mason/Dixon line, Bearded Iris is following a very similar road map towards exceptional single-hop IPAs. Nashville has a pretty bustling craft beer scene of its own these days, with a very fresh and fearless vision since most of its breweries have modest roots in home brewing. It’s worth prioritizing a trip to Nashville just to hit up Bearded Iris, because their track-record with IPAs is damn near flawless.
Homestyle is one of the Bearded Iris flagship IPAs; Double Homestyle is the imperial version of that brew, kind of a steppingstone towards the even more hop-forward versions of Double Homestyle that the Nashville brewery sometimes tweaks with a second hop varietal for dry-hopping. Double Homestyle is hoppy enough, though. Like Homestyle, it exists mainly as a showcase for Mosaic hops, featuring all the familiar hallmarks: It’s a juicy DIPA with strong lemon and cantaloupe and peach notes, and an incredibly well-balanced flavor profile.
Double Homestyle presents maximum hop flavor without any bitterness, similar to the effect achieved when using lupulin powder, but again with zero bitterness. It’s a hop bomb with a strong amount of dankness, upfront and on the nose. For a NEIPA, it’s not particularly cloudy, but Double Homestyle tastes and smells so great that it didn’t last long enough in a glass to spend much time considering its look. Double Homestyle rates well for its sweetness and hop-heads will be stoked on its juiciness. At 8.2% ABV, it’s a hair too strong to be crushable, but also way too good to drink just one. Arm yourself with snacks.
For more info on Double Homestyle, please head here.