There are two things I’m a total sucker for: great IPAs and bad puns. Luckily for me, the two are found together more often than you’d think. Hop to it, Hop-a-doodle-do, Hop-ocalypse, and my perennial favorite, Hoptimus Prime, to name a few. Needless to say, when I saw yet another cleverly named bitter, I couldn’t help but pick some up.

But enough English, let’s get pissed!

The History

Blue Point Brewing Company was born in 1998 in Long Island by friends Mark Burford and Pete Cotter. Still relatively new and relatively small - producing around 10,000 barrels annually - Blue Point offers around 15 standard beers plus the occasional one-off. Brewing is done both at the original brewery in Patchogue, NY and at a larger bottling facility in Maryland (one of the reasons I’m able to find a variety of Blue Point down in Washington DC).

For those in the Long Island area, or if you’re ever vacationing nearby, Blue Point has a tasting room in their Patchogue brewery. It’s open 3-7pm on Thursday & Friday, and 12-7pm on Saturdays. Head on down and enjoy a drink.

The Style

Typically, India Pale Ales are bitter, with citrus or pine flavors, and a low malt profile. This is from the higher than normal amount of hops added to the beer. You might ask yourself, why India Pale Ale? Well, the style was born when British troops were stationed in India. Breweries in England found that when they added more hops to their Pale Ale, the beer was able to survive the long voyage to India (due to the higher alcohol content, as well as preservative properties in the hop). When soldiers returned from India, they had acquired a taste for this new kind of ale. Thus, the IPA became a mainstay of English beer culture.

Fast forward a couple centuries and you have the American IPA, which relies on the same principal, but is far more bitter / hoppy than it’s ancestor across the pond.

Hoptical Illusion is a classic American IPA. Classic - not double or imperial - because although it’s a majorly hoppy beer, it’s a classic 6.8% ABV and only 60IBUs. By comparison, Dogfish Head’s 120-minute IPA is 120IBU, Southern Tier Unearthly IPA is 153, and the absolutely ridiculous Mikkeller X Hop Juice dominates the competition with a whopping - I’m not making this up - 2,007 IBU. Unlike those dubbed ‘extreme’, Hoptical Illusion provides some perhaps welcome moderation to the world of hop-head IPAs.

Hoptical Illusion also boasts “a rare variety of hop grown exclusively on a farm in Oregon.” According to their website, Blue Point bought the whole crop. They don’t give the variety a name, so let’s just call it the Mystery Hop.

The Tasting

The beer pours a pale copper with a thick, soapy, sticky white head. Aroma is citrusy, particularly a slight grapefruit.

Obviously, it’s all hops up front. A piney, evergreen sweet, followed by a bitter sting on the front of the tongue. Overall, it’s more of a harsh bitter than the sweet floral and citrus I’m used to from big hop-bomb IPAs. Malt is there, but it’s hard for me to pick out a specific flavor. It’s just very well in tune with the hops, providing a balancing sweet bread (not sweetbread) that really rounds out the main bitterness.

Aftertaste is dry and soapy - and much cleaner than that makes it sound. Increasing sweetness as the beer warms, more of a sharp grapefruit and less of the initial spruce.

Light on the mouth. Crisp, very easy to drink. Far less syrupy than your average big IPA, yet it retains the full punch-in-the-face hop flavor of IPAs twice its strength. On the other hand, it’s a bit light, weak, and watery once the carbonation dies. The flavor holds, but the feel definitely thins a tad too much at the end.

The Verdict

I really really like this. At first I was kind of skeptical about the “Mystery Hop” gimmick, but I’m honestly impressed enough to conclude that buying the entire supply of a whole variety of hops wasn’t just a cheap gimmick. It has the full flavor and hop profile of a 9 or 10% alcohol double IPA, but a thinner body and less than 7% ABV puts Hoptical Illusion comfortably into the session beer category. Not the best IPA ever, but I would happily recommend it.

8/10