So what do you look for in a beer? As a fan of German beers, I would say no taste of decomposition or fermentation; I want a nice clean product. As a fan of IPAs, I would say a nice crisp piquant bitterness.

Banger IPA gets very close. It has too much of the yeasty rotting pumpkin flavor of fermentation, which if you have ever swum in a lake with a corpse in it you recognize as the taste of the water, and is just a shade short of crisp with a tiny sliver of too much sweetness.

Otherwise, however, this beer offers quite a bit, including an 8.4% ABV that is not as punishing as some IPAs but sort of glorious in its own right, basically a wine-beer for alcoholics driving lawnmowers into town to avoid getting their sixth DUI.

The hazy/imperial variety of IPAs involves adding hops throughout the fermentation process, driving up the bitterness and alcohol (the two constants of modern life!) while driving out the marshy sugar-beverage flavor that we know from (say…) Budweiser or Tecate.

While everyone wants hipsters dead, these beers predated them, being an adaptation of the British Empire which decided to make beer for people who do not like sugar, salt, and fat added to everything. And on a cold day, no way I would kick one of these out of bed.

Tags: banger IPA, beer, hazy IPA, imperial IPA, IPA, saint arnold brewing company, sodomy