From the Beer Writer: Since meeting New English Brewing Co. owner Simon Lacey, I’ve admired his devotion to crafting high quality versions of the beers of his homeland. In a day and age where most locally produced versions of U.K. beer styles are given West Coast or imperial treatment, for the most part, New English’s beers are brewed to style. Early on, Lacey stuck exclusively to a line-up that included a brown ale, extra special bitter (ESB) and decidedly British India pale ale (IPA). He’s since expanded his repertoire to include West Coast IPAs, and they’ve turned out fantastic. When we talked about the type of beer he’d produce for my lupus fundraising campaign, Beer to the Rescue, he grinned and said he thought we should play off the word lupus’ resemblance to Humulus lupulus, the compound in hops that brings so much bitterness to beers. For him, that meant brewing New English’s first-ever double IPA. I’m glad he decided to go outside the IBU and ABV box, and honored he did so in conjunction with this passion project.
From the Brewer: “After brewing two American IPAs—a West Coast-style rye IPA called Humbly Legit, and an IPA heavily dry-hopped with Citra and Mosaic called Pure and Simple—we decided that a double IPA might fit into our balanced beer philosophy after all. One Saturday I was drinking a Drake’s Brewing Co. flight at Blind Lady Ale House, when I came to the Hopocalypse IIPA. I wasn’t expecting to enjoy it as much as the other beers in the flight, but it turned out to be a revelation! Beautifully bitter but bright and balanced, I decided right there that we would also make a double IPA. We started working on the recipe immediately and, soon after, we produced Two Legit IIPA. It’s not a double version of Humbly Legit. It’s a completely new recipe with no rye malt, but we liked the name. It’s based on U.S. two-row base malt with some German Munich plus wheat malt for body and head retention. Hopped with copious quantities of CTZ, Nugget and Summit in the kettle, and Summit and Centennial dry hops, the alcohol content is 9.2% and the IBUs register a solid 90-plus.”—Simon Lacey, Owner & Brewmaster, New English Brewing Co.