Beer: Sierra Nevada Torpedo Extra IPA

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Beer: Sierra Nevada Torpedo Extra IPA

Just back from football and rehydrating with this beer. Now I like Sierra Nevada’s regular pale ale – it’s one of the beers that kicked off the US craft beer revolution in the early 1980s, and it’s still a best seller – but it’s a tiny bit tame in comparison with the new wave US IPAs.

Step forward their Torpedo Extra IPA. It’s the pale ale, turbocharged with more hops, but not it’s unbalanced. They’ve been making it since 2009, and it’s priced the same as the pale ale, at £1.99. And the good news is that you can buy it in Tesco. Never before has so much flavour been available for so little, to so many. [Perhaps with the exception of Tesco Finest Double American IPA, made by Brewdog, and also £1.99 at Tesco.]

Sierra Nevada Torpedo IPA
7.2% alcohol. Lively, fresh, full-flavoured and complex with notes of pine, herbs, hops, grapefruit and some sweet maltiness. Citrus flavours balance out the sweet malty, toffee notes on the palate, and there’s a long, warm, spicy hoppy finish. Top stuff: intense but balanced. 9/10

3 Comments on Beer: Sierra Nevada Torpedo Extra IPATagged
wine journalist and flavour obsessive

3 thoughts on “Beer: Sierra Nevada Torpedo Extra IPA

  1. Of all the products one could choose to buy local, surely beer is one of them. Any review such as this should probably end with ‘but it’s no Kernel’. Only very few UK brewers have worked out how to use hops like the Crafty Americans, but they are worth seeking out. Rocky Head is one. On the very odd occasion I buy US beer, Odell IPA is my favourite.

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