BlackStack Bottles IPA in Cans

BlackStack Bottles IPA in Cans.

7 % ABV, BlackStack Brewing, St. Paul, MN. 

And here we have a beer that I purchased in 4-packs for several reasons: 1. It was not priced above $16. 2. It seems like it might resemble a beer I could like. 3. I read the back of the can and felt that this was one I had to enter into the Nib. For reasons. 

Of all the interesting and fun names that BlackStack has given to their beers, they go ahead and call this one Bottles. There are bottles flying through the sky in formation on the label. And below, where they normally give me abbreviated style designation, i.e., "TDH DIPA", "DDH TIPA" and the like, they say: IPA in cans. Again, it's a beer called Bottles and it's an "IPA in cans." Aren't all of their beers IPAs in cans?

Bottle people are weird, but maybe can people are even weirder. I met a bottle man not too long ago, who said to me, "Hey, I usually drink Bass, or Sierra Nevada, or Fat Tire, but I think I should branch out and try something new. What do you suggest?" I pointed at Steel Toe Size 7, and he countered with, "do you have it in bottles? I haven't had a beer in a can in 30 years!" I assured him that cans are just as good, even better than bottles, and have been for a good 20 years, almost. (I also ignored the fact that Size 7 is in bottles, albeit bomber size.). That everyone's canning, even Sierra Nevada and Fat Tire. And that the beer is all the same once you pour it into a glass. I won him over. (For the sale, anyway, we haven't circled back with one another to check on his acceptance of cans.)

Bottle people are fussy people, resistant to change, sure in their ways, married to the glass through romance and nostalgia. What about can people, though, what can we say about them?

We'll get to the can label copy after we drink the beer. Let's crack it open, and pour it out: 

Hazy (this is BlackStack, they can't help themselves), bright yellow color, slight white head. 

In the nose: mild and citrusy, grapefruit and lemon. Orange zest. Pleasant enough. 

In the mouth: Big lemony, citrus hop bite up top. Thins out & dries out quickly. Fuzzy, yeasty flavor takes over. Malt is meager. Body is light. Drinkability is okay. Yes, just okay. Decent beer and you can drink it. Yeah, there's nothing particularly thrilling about this one. 

So, let's check out the back label copy that somebody wrote while stoned: 

A modern take on IPA as an homage to simpler times. 'Member going to the store and grabbing a sixer of clear & bitter IPA in twist off, short, squat, brown bottles and life was grand? Those were the days. This is 16oz of less than see-thru juice, courtesy of our hand-selected Mosaic, El Dorado & Simcoe Cryo in beer tubes for times like these.

Breaking it down: first line makes no sense. How do you do a "modern take" as an "homage to simpler times." If you half-ass it, I guess. The next two lines are meant to be read sarcastically I'm sure. The use of "'member" conjures up the member-berries of "SouthPark." Then, at the end, the omniscient narrator awakes from his dream with a confident voice, and we learn more unassailable facts about beer today. That it is called "juice", now.  That they will not brook clarity. That the 16 ounce "pounder" can, aka "tallboy",  is also known as a "beer tube", and that these are "times like these", times that call for tubes of juice. 

I don't know what to make of it. It drips of smarm and smirk. It feels like the voice of the tube is mocking those who 'member back when things came in glass bottles, because that's how it was, dagnabbit, and we liked it that way! 

Was someone "'membering" a bit too loudly at the taproom, and the brewers decided to take them down? They certainly didn't make a beer that evokes the IPAs of those days. Not even as an homage. 

I wish I could find a BlackStack beer that I really like, but it seems more and more that I am not in their audience.