Beavertown Trippy Birthday Triple IPA Review - Trip Trip Hooray
We were going to cover them at some point, but as Beavertown celebrated their 10th birthday last year and I got my hands on a can of the beer prepared for the celebration, there was no better time than the present!
Founded in London in 2011 by Logan Plant, the son of Led Zeppelin legend Robert Plant, Beavertown reportedly started as a homebrewing project. Named jokingly after De Beauvoir Town in Hackney where the project started and beer was first brewed. With a base location and taproom (Saturdays 12-9) near Tottenham Hale station which expanded into a larger operation in Enfield in 2018, it didn’t take long for the operation to scale up. Beavertown are now one of the larger craft brewers in the UK and arguably the most recognisable with their distinct sci-fi inspired skull alien cans and brand. In late 2022, the brewery completed a sale to Heineken, who had already taken a minority stake in 2018.
The brewery boasts a core line up that many will be familiar with, with Gamma Ray, Neck Oil and Lupuloid quite widely available in bars and at retail. The brewery's flagship beer is Gamma Ray, a 5.4% American Pale Ale that has won multiple awards and boasts a characterful, hoppy flavour based on classic American hops like Amarillo and Citra, making it smooth and drinkable. At 4.3% Neck Oil is Beavertowns widely available session IPA, a light, citrusy beer, with a slight bitterness. Lupuloid is described as a “no compromises IPA”, a 6.7% full bodied tropical beer with a hazy golden colour. Lupuloid is distinguished from many IPAs by the use of concentrated cryo hops, formed of the extracted isolated lupulin of a hop which is a main source of flavour and aroma.
In addition to its core range of beers, Beavertown also produces a wide variety of limited edition and seasonal beers, but are also no stranger to collaborations. Of note from this reviewer were the 2019 Clinging to Summer IPA collab with Firestone Walker, and 2021’s Earl Grey IPA, Cosmic Earl. But for August 2022’s 10th Birthday bash at their taproom in August 2022 Beavertown brewed our subject today, the 10% Trippy! Birthday Triple IPA.
The Double and Triple IPA name relates to the overall alcoholic strength of a traditionally strong type of beer. With Double usually occupying the 7-9% range and Triple (sometimes called Imperial) usually starting at 9%. But this is often at the discretion of the brewery and their labelling decisions. No doubt Trippy! was planned at 10% to represent each of their years in business. Available on tap at the birthday event last August, I was pleased to see the beer was also canned on a recent visit to the taproom at Tottenham Hale. As soon as the can is opened the fresh summer barley field fragrance hits you, and the beer pours surprisingly clear, with a warm golden look almost like honey.
Drinking smoother than its 10% ABV should, this beer could well surprise someone who didn’t clock the strength, until they find their mind start to wander on the titular trip.
As a juicy, tropical IPA, Trippy! is bursting with flavour while being surprisingly delicate for such a strong beer. Slightly sweet with a marginally bitter finish, the rich citrus and pine flavours come from an all-star hop line up featuring Columbus, Simcoe, Acoya, Ekuanot, Citra, Mosaic, Amarillo and Galaxy. This is a beer that could truly surprise a lot of people, for both its literal alcoholic strength, but also its depth of flavour and general smoothness. It’s the kind of beer that changes minds and creates fans of strong IPAs. It’s a great example of everything that has brought Beavertown through their first decade but is also hopefully a bold display of confidence of what is to come as the business enters the next chapter. Personally, I think Trippy! is in the conversation for the best Beavertown beers I have ever tried and I look forward to seeing what comes next.
The can of Trippy! sampled here was canned in August 2022, as I imagine is true of the whole batch. It was from a recent visit to the Beavertown taproom at Tottenham Hale, where the last few cans were still available. Though no longer available from Beavertown online at the time of writing, the beer can still be found from some other merchants and specialist outlets as I managed to find some and I’ve ordered a case.
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Written by Mark Charles Adams.
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