First, apologies for not having my own picture this week. I have no one to blame but myself. The official wife and I ran into the official favorite home brewers of DFTB, and I got carried away actually enjoying my beer and conversation. I’ll try not to let that happen again.
Anyway, Melvin IPA is a very interesting beer. It’s very hoppy, but—at the same time—very mild. The hops are more tropical and citrus than bitter. It’s almost a misnomer to call it an IPA because it’s so different than most IPAs you’ll encounter.
Where most good IPAs hit you with hops bitterness and balance that with malt depth and/or sweetness, Melvin is all about balance from the start. The malt is there, but its more a complement to the hops than a counterbalance. In other words, you don’t need the malt to take the edge off the bitter hops flavor. Instead that malts kind of build off the fruitiness of the hops to accentuate the flavor.
The end result is something different and very appealing. I won’t ever give up strong, bitter IPAs, but I really like Melvin as a tasty counterpoint. If you haven’t had it, it’s definitely worth a try. I’m going to work it in to my IPA rotation.