Spit Borrows the Hazy IPA's Double Dry-Hop, Then Goes Bitter

Double dry-hopping is a hazy IPA move. The technique, two separate charges of hops added after fermentation for aroma rather than bitterness, grew up alongside the soft and deliberately unbitter beers of the last decade. Armistice has attached it to something considerably sharper.

Spit is a DDH West Coast IPA at 7.0 percent, released Thursday at the brewery's Richmond and Napa taprooms. The hop bill runs to two varieties. Citra takes both dry-hop charges, which is where the DDH comes from, and the brewery credits it with lemon curd. El Dorado handles the rest.

That second hop is the part worth a longer look. El Dorado is usually cast as the sweet one. The notes attached to it tend toward watermelon, pear and tropical candy, which is a good part of why it became a fixture in hazy IPAs. Armistice describes it here as salted papaya and noble fir. The papaya is recognizable enough. Noble fir is an unusual thing to pull out of that hop, and it tilts the whole beer toward the resinous, evergreen end of the West Coast tradition rather than the fruit-punch end.

The brewery's own summary runs "bright, dry, citrusy, resinous, and bitter." Three of those five are qualities a hazy IPA is specifically engineered to avoid, which is a fair indication of where this one is pointed.

The can settles any ambiguity about the name. It carries a pink line drawing of a rapper bent over a microphone, mid-verse, with the beer's name in loose brush lettering underneath.

Spit landed as part of a three-can drop, alongside two fruited seltzers, on a day the brewery described as uncomfortably hot. Armistice noted in the same breath that a West Coast IPA like this tastes especially good when it is aggressively cold outside, then corrected itself. Cans are available now at both taprooms.