Recently I visited Kelowna’s top Liquor Store (Metro Liquor) to stock up my beer fridge and found a six pack of Victoria’s Lighthouse Brewing “Switch Back IPA”. It had a cool label and it’s a beer I’ve never tried before so I took home half a dozen bottles.
I opened my first bottle and “Bam”, the aroma immediately reminded me of Russian River Brewing’s “Pliny the Elder”! This is the Holy Grail of IPAs and something that is not available in Canada. In fact at many beer stores in the Pacific NW, there is a limit to how many bottles one can purchase at a time.
Luckily, I had two bottles of Pliny the Elder in my beer fridge, so did a side by side comparison. What I found was interesting. The aroma on both beers immediately after pouring was almost identical. The colour, a slight bit darker on the Switchback. The flavour profile very similar with the Pliny coming in a bit sweeter. The Pliny the elder had slightly more head retention.
As far as ratings, the Pliny the Elder is 8% ABV, while the Switch Back IPA clocks in at 6.5% ABV, hence the sweeter taste in the Pliny. Perhaps the Switch Back IPA would resemble the Russian River “Blind Pig IPA” a bit closer as it is closer in ABV.
Russian River Brewing's Pliny the Elder vs Lighthouse Brewing's Switch Back IPA.
What does this all mean? Well, to us BC Craft Beer drinkers it means that we can have access to yet another great IPA brewed in Canada. Most importantly it means that there are brewers out there who can brew a class of IPA in the same tier as Pliny the Elder. Let’s hope Lighthouse Brewing can come out with an Imperial IPA that might blow us all away!
Cheers!
