Session # 152 | Laurelwood | Workhorse IPA | 7.5% ABV
American IPA | Portland, Oregon | Rating: 92/100
One year ago: Avery Black Tot
The Laurelwood Public House and Brewery is another one from Portland proper and their Workhorse IPA is one of the better beers we’ll be looking at this week. The brewery makes a lot of claims about the beer’s balance, and I have to agree with them. The color is warm and honey-like. The effervescence was truly amazing as those bubbles were trying as hard as they could to get up out of the glass. A really nice looking head formed here, too. The aroma told me very quickly that it’d be a great beer. It had that west coast flair that we talk about a lot. There was loads of tangerine, peach, mango, and pine with a nice floral undertone. Immediately upon hitting the palate you begin to understand the claim of balance because it’s as bitter as it is sweet. The hops pummel your tongue and deliver the same tangerine, mango, and pine flavors that came across on the nose. With the way this beer was crafted, I can assure you I’ll be hunting more beers down from this brewery.
Check out all sessions of The Hopry here.
This beer can be found in these states.
Listening To: Menomena “Five Little Rooms”
Let us know your thoughts by rating and commenting on this video.
Posted by MikeZ on March 8, 2011 at 8:42 PM
Laurelwood and Amnesia are a couple breweries that make me want to buy a double decker bike and move to Portland and retire. The Laurelwood Free Range Red is also good.
Posted by thehopry on March 8, 2011 at 8:59 PM
Hahaha… I’ve read good things about that Free Range Red, too. Will have to look into getting one some day.
Posted by nwer on March 29, 2011 at 7:45 AM
Mark knows his beer all right and I thoroughly enjoy your reviews but you are definitely in need of a geography lesson.
Not to be too provincial – really – but West Coast IPA’s are exclusive to Southern California? Really? And hops come primarily from Northern California and Oregon? Is the ignorance willful or by accident?
Let me help you out:
http://www.usahops.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=hop_farming&pageID=13
Hope this helps.
Prost!
Posted by thehopry on March 29, 2011 at 10:05 AM
Hi Larry –
Geography was definitely not my major in college, and my ignorance is usually by design.
If you go back and watch the video again, I never say west coast beers are exclusive to southern California. Do a lot of people not living on the west coast associate southern California with west coast IPAs? Of course they do. I quickly go on to clarify that “there are a lot of good west coast beers that come from the northwest.”
As to the geography of where hops are grown, it’s a fact that there are a lot of hops grown in northern California and Oregon. But did I say “primarily?” No. You could certainly include Washington and parts of Canada in that list. I simply neglected to say that in this particular review; probably because I had Oregon and California in my head at the time.
If you have time and want to check out my review of the HUB Secession CDA you can see I actually go in to a tiny bit more detail about the Cascadian region (northern Cali up to southern Canada) where a bulk of hops are grown.
Thanks,
Mark Starr
Posted by nwer on March 29, 2011 at 10:34 AM
Thanks Mark.
Like I said, I don’t want to get too provincial about this but since the Yakima Valley produces 77% of the hops produced in the United States and are renowned around the world, that to me is non-trivial and deserves more than just a passing footnote to Oregon and California produced hops – but that’s just me.
The important thing is Workhorse IPA is a fantastic beer and you did the review justice. I was fortunate to visit Laurelwood a couple of weeks ago and brought back a growler of the Workhorse. It didn’t last long. Thirsty for more.
Prost!
Larry
Posted by thehopry on March 29, 2011 at 10:47 AM
You’re fine. I definitely want to make sure people have the right info (whether it’s me or someone else providing it). So thank you for the comments.