Texas Beer Nerd

The C.D.A. stands for Cascadian Dark Ale, a beer style that Deschutes, from Bend and Portland, Oregon, may or may not have made up themselves. Hop In The Dark is a black IPA. Like with a black lager, this beer takes the deep, dark color and maltiness of a stout or porter, takes away the heaviness and then ads something different. In a black lager’s case, it’s the clean drinkability. In this case, it’s the crisp, snappiness of hops. But whereas a black lager is more similar to the stout, a black IPA is more similar to a porter. To make this beer, Deschutes uses a lot of different malts, seven in fact. Thankfully, even with this much, the malt doesn’t take over. This is supposed to be an IPA derived beer after all. However, the variety is welcome and creates a complex bed for the hops to spring off from. There’s a very slight coffee and chocolate tinge to the malt flavor. Six hop varieties are used. The dominant characteristic is pure bitterness but this is bookended by citrus-like and pine-like flavors. To be honest, the bitterness could be toned down a bit. It lingers a bit too long and mutes the other hop flavors. While I can’t say this is the best hoppy beer I’ve ever had it is certainly interesting. I hope more brewers get the itch to make dark beers that are also hoppy. Both black IPAs and black lagers seem to be on the rise.