Double dry-hopping is a hazy IPA habit. Live Your West Life, out this week from North Park Beer Co., points it at a West Coast IPA instead: 6.9 percent ABV, bright and clear in the glass, and hopped with Citra, Krush, Mosaic, Nectaron, and Simcoe.

The brewery frames the whole thing as a bit of taproom philosophy, and does not particularly pretend otherwise:

"Is there such a thing as too many dry hops?" or "Is this West Coast IPA too clear?" (no, and no)

The hop bill splits neatly into two groups. Simcoe and Mosaic are long-standing West Coast reference points and the usual source of the pine and resin the style rests on. Nectaron and Krush are much newer varieties, both leaning tropical and stonefruit. They are the likely reason the brewery's notes list berry candy, dried mango, and orange blossom next to fresh pine. Citra sits between the two camps. The effect, as North Park describes it, is a beer that keeps the dry, bitter frame of a West Coast IPA while carrying a fruit-forward aroma. That aroma is what heavy dry-hopping has spent the past decade delivering to hazy beers. The brewery calls it pleasantly dank and wonderfully dry.

The label keeps the running gag going. A hop in a cowboy hat and round glasses stands under the words "Welcome to my HopTalk!", and the release notes close by thanking readers for coming to it.

Live Your West Life is one of four cans North Park released together this week, available at the brewery's San Diego taprooms with pickup and California shipping through its site.

Editor’s Take

There was a stretch, not that long ago, when double dry-hopped West Coast IPA would have read as a category error. Piling on dry hops was the hazy camp's move; the West Coast camp's entire personality was restraint, clarity, and a bitterness you had to earn. That truce has quietly collapsed, and Live Your West Life is a cheerful little monument to the collapse - all the dry hop you would put in a hazy, none of the flour-water look.

What makes the hop bill fun is that you can see both eras sitting in it. Simcoe and Mosaic are the old guard, the pine and resin the style was built on. Nectaron and Krush are recent arrivals with tropical, stonefruit-leaning ambitions, and they are almost certainly why berry candy and dried mango turn up in the same sentence as fresh pine. North Park gets to the joke first, asking whether the beer is too clear and then answering itself, which remains the correct way to handle a question nobody asked.

Source & Editorial

JollyPint independently prepares release articles using information published by breweries through newsletters, websites, and other official public communications. Brewery-supplied descriptions and tasting notes are reported as provided, while editorial context is added by JollyPint.

Live Your West Life Brings the Hazy Dry-Hop to a Clear IPA

Double dry-hopping is a hazy IPA habit. North Park has pointed it at a bright, clear West Coast IPA instead, pairing two long-standing pine-and-resin hops with two much newer tropical ones.

Source & Editorial