For most, Sunday mornings are reserved for church or coffee and the paper, but Hamilton’s Tavern sets aside one early Sabbath per year for hop fiends to indulge in one of the head-wrecking-est styles of beer on the planet: triple IPAs. The famed South Park beer bar’s annual IIIPA challenge took place over the weekend and featured 16 India pale ales coming in at more than 10% alcohol-by-volume, all of which were sampled by a pre-ticketed panel of beer fans, media and industry insiders who were asked to score them based on simple criteria: which one do you like the most?
The field included triple IPAs from Abnormal Beer Co., Alpine Beer Co., Amplified Ale Works, Beachwood Brewing, Burgeon Beer Co., Burning Beard Brewing, El Segundo Brewing, Half Door Brewing, Karl Strauss Brewing, Knee Deep Brewing, North Park Beer Co., Pizza Port, Resident Brewing, Revision Brewing, South Park Brewing and the originator of the style, Russian River Brewing. The annual edition of the latter’s famed and elusive Pliny the Younger was tapped especially for the occasion.
Once all the votes had been cast, the peoples’ choice competition produced the following top five:
- For Duty & Humanity (10.2%), South Park Brewing, South Park
- Resident 3viiiL, (10.5%), Resident Brewing, East Village
- Pliny the Younger, (10.25%), Russian River Brewing, Windsor
- Hops of Fury, (11%), Beachwood Brewing, Long Beach
- Riggity Wrecked, (11%), Pizza Port, San Clemente
Two local breweries took the top two spots while three well-respected veteran out-of-towners filled out the rest of the top spots. This was the third straight year this competition has been held. Last year, Pizza Port swept the competition with Thruster, Riggity Wrecked and Blinky taking the top three spots. In 2017, Knee Deep took top honors with Simtra, narrowly beating out Monkey Paw Brewing’s Muriqui and Pliny the Younger, which placed third that year as well.