- Product Reviewed: Aviator IPA
- Brewed By: Aviator Ales; Woodinville, WA
- Form Reviewed: Draft at Herbfarm Festival 6/15/96
- Original Posted to Usenet: July 24, 1996
- Style: American IPA
- Post-Script (12/29/2002): Brewery Closed quite some time ago
Initial Impressions:
As some of you are perhaps aware (in nauseating detail), IPA is my favorite beer style. While I enjoy subtle beers, and consider them more of a challenge to brew, nothing can match the aggressive flavor profile of a splendidly hopped IPA. Hops are the defining component of IPA to be sure; assertive bittering is a necessity for an IPA. However, the brewer ought not ignore the malt side of the equation, else the bittering be unsupported by an insufficient foundation. Many brewers choose to build on this firm malty/bitter base by including healthy flavor and aroma additions thus creating, in the words of Delano Dugarm, a "Wall of Hops." A well bittered IPA with a solid malt foundation and lovely hop character is a wonderful pint.The heights that this style can achieve, exemplified by IPAs from Anderson Valley, Big Time, Sierra Nevada, Victory, Pike, and Diamond Knot (to name a few very good to excellent examples) is sullied by brewers who latch on to the moniker as a trendy marketing device and degraded by those who do not brew a beer true to the style. If an otherwise underhopped and uninspired pale ale can be called India Pale Ale, why have stylistic monikers at all? We would be in a world where beers are named in a similar fashion as car models. Did anybody really believe that a 1974 Mustang II, based on the Pinto platform, powered by a flat four, was really a Mustang?
To call Aviator IPA "the Pinto of the IPA family" would be generous. I'd rather it be the Edsel of IPA's, but unfortunately Aviator Ales is a new startup craft brewery that means business. Related to Willamette Valley Brewing (brewers of the Nor'Wester line of beers: I reviewed the Best Bitter to this forum two summers ago) Aviator offered an ISO before selling a drop of beer. Clearly, there are high financial expectations to be met. The brewery cannot risk offending a single consumer; hence, an authentic IPA is out of the question. Yet, the moniker has a certain marketing allure to it that can be cashed in on. The result is Aviator IPA: a beer that makes Sierra Nevada Pale Ale seem outrageously hopped.
The beer itself is quite golden. As expected, it is crystal clear with good head retention.
Nose:
The bouquet is empty. A slight maltiness can be found on a second pass, along with an equally slight hoppiness.
Flavor:
As empty as the aroma predicts. A slight malty middle is evident, but there is no perceptible hop character to this beer. No bitterness, no flavor, nothing. Aviator IPA will not cause bitter beer face.
Final Analysis:
Aviator IPA would qualify as a two-star Pale Ale. However, since some soul at the brewery has the temerity to sell this as an IPA, it rates even worse. I generally reserve scores of less than two stars for beers that are somehow procedurally flawed (as opposed to a technical flaw, which is what you get when you forget to add hops to your IPA) but this beer is one of the exceptions to that rule. It is not an IPA. It is not a very good American pale ale. It is an uninspired training-wheel ale, certain to garner Aviator income from the trendy set. However, a real beer geek, knowing what IPA is, would be profoundly disappointed by spending money on this beer. I was.
Rating:
(Poor on my 5-star scale)
