Beer Review: Two Roads Brewing Honeyspot IPA

Name:Honeyspot IPA
Brewing Company: Two Roads Brewing Company
Location: Stratford, CT
Style: IPA
ABV: 6.0% / IBU: 55

From the beer’s description on Two Roads’ Web site:

The Two Roads version of this traditional beer style takes a road less traveled. It’s unfiltered and uses wheat as the dominant malt backbone. The result is a slightly cloudy, pale IPA with a softer mouthfeel that accentuates the citrusy Pacific Northwest hop character.

IPA (India Pale Ale) is the most popular style in craft beer to the point people who aren’t beer drinkers sometimes think they are one and the same. There are quite a few breweries (at least here in NJ and many outside of NJ, I’m sure) that seem to brew -only- IPAs. That said, IPA is one of my least favorite styles, I usually won’t go out of my way for one and will usually avoid them if other styles are available. The hoppiness just doesn’t work for me nor does the grapefruit taste the hops evoke as I find grapefruits vile.

Sure I’ve had quite a few IPAs if you go by my untapped IPA badge count (of about 50 different IPAs over the past few years), but like I said, IPAs are unavoidable. I’ll drink a few IPAs voluntarily, like Founders All Day IPA, Demented’s Dementia or a couple of the popular IPAs with a fruit infusion, but that’s about it. I do enjoy Black IPAs, but that’s a beer of a different kettle, so to speak.

Then I tried Two Roads’ Honeyspot IPA; I was very impressed.

I thought I might like this one for two reasons.

I haven’t had a beer from Two Roads I’ve disliked. Most of their beers, for my palate, are at worst very good while others are great.
Honeyspot Road uses Wheat as the malt. As I have pointed out previously, I love me a wheat-based beer.

The beer pours a bright yellow from the 12oz bottle and maybe because of wheat base, it looks almost like a Witbier. The hop hits the nose, but not in an overpowering way and it continues through drinking the beer. But the unfiltered wheat is a perfect balance against the bitterness of the hops, it softens the character of the hop flower. The IBU on this is low to the middle of the road at 55 IBU. Put it this way, I’ve had IPAs with lower IBU that left more of a bitter, hop aftertaste. Maybe it is the wheat base that cuts the bitterness or makes it more palatable.

I kept thinking how balanced this beer is and how easily I could throw back a few of these over a warm afternoon or a long Sunday. Most IPAs have an ABV over 6, the Session IPAs are lower than 5%, like All Day IPA which is 4.7%. Honeyspot is exactly 6% so it isn’t quite a Session beer, but it won’t knock you out like a lot of other IPAs will, many of which are 7% and above.

Honeyspot IPA is a delicious beer and one that seems to be perfectly geared for beer drinkers like me who don’t typically gravitate to IPAs while also please IPA drinkers.