Omnipollo Lorpan IPA. Available for $5.25/473ml through the LCBO or Craft Brand Co’s Online Bodega
Since the last time I used the blog in any significant way, the formatting has changed significantly, so it’s nice to have a Hazy IPA that for once retains its texture as I’m figuring out exactly what buttons need pushing. Omnipollo has become something of a heavy hitter in the import category at the LCBO. That is partly due to the fact that the category is down, and also partly due to the loophole created by being a foreign owned brand that’s brewed locally under contract.
I’ve gone back and forth on contract brewing over the course of the last decade, and my feeling is, after significant consideration, that I should care about it as much as an average punter walking into the store. That is to say less than I have done historically.
What I can tell you about Omnipollo is limited to my experience with their website. The branding is self referential to the point that you have to mouse over pictures of their products to figure out what they might be. Between that and the landing page I had to navigate through three times and the total lack of information about what might be in Lorpan IPA, I find myself a bit stymied. If I’m paying $5.25 for a beer, especially an IPA, I want to know more about what’s in it without an uphill struggle.
In fact, the head retention has lasted all through that baby-like colic of the last two graphs. Nice quality from the team over at Brunswick. The aroma here suggests masses of cold side additions to the extent that I am a little worried about hop burn. It is so heavily dry hopped that the IPA glass striates in colour depending on the circumference. Call it 3 SRM in the stem and 6 SRM in the bulb. The top notes are pineapple, carrot juice, laurel, sage, tomato vine, vanilla, gooseberry, blueberry, a pair of peaches and a peach of a pear. On the palate it collapses that complexity to a juicy sweetness and not much more. It’s to the brewing team’s credit that the alkaloid hop burn I was expecting looking at it didn’t manifest. I feel it reduces from first experience to last from massive complexity to practical singularity.
Did You Buy This Beer?: This turned up with some Superflux Beers from the Craft Brand Co. Bodega and you’ll have seen them on other people’s instagrams and whatnot.
Knowing What You Know Now, Would You Buy This Beer?: I have reservations partially due to the price point, which I think is a little high (I figure more than a penny a millilitre for a day to day beer is high), and also due to the fact that I’m an old stick in the mud who never got on board the haze train. You might feel differently, and I can’t say you’d be wrong. You know you.
Did You Finish It?: I’m watching my figure, so no.
How much of it is recipe, and how much of it is a) the quality of the ingredients, b) the brewer’s skill, c) the quality of the water, etc? I.e. is this Omnipollo’s beer or is it the brewers? (Maybe that’s a stupid question)
That’s an excellent question. It turns out that it is all Citra hop, meaning that they have used enough of it to turn up the minor components. Nominally, the recipe should be from Henok at Omnipollo, but on the day it might be out a little depending on the local brew team. For things like hazy IPAs, water chemistry is probably somewhat specified in terms of chloride and sodium, but who knows if they’re rebuilding the mineral profile of the water from scratch reverse osmosis style or just using filtered municipal water? Therefore, it’s a combination of factors.