Water, yeast, barley, and hops. Four ingredients combined in a very specific way in order to create a beverage that is enjoyed by billions of people around the world. We call this beverage beer around these parts, or Craft Beer if it happens to be a particularly fancy beer expression.
At first glance, since there are only four ingredients involved, one would think that making beer is a pretty simple process, but when you start to do a bit of research, you soon realize that there are endless ingredient combinations that result in a mind boggling variety of possible beer creations. Throw in extra stuff like fruit, herbs, and spices, age your beer in some kind of oak barrel, or make your beer using airborne wild yeast, and things get even more complicated (more fun too!). In other words, beer making involves several Moving Parts (see what I did there?).
It’s these endless combinations that led Victory to introduce their Moving Parts IPA series. Below are a few words about Moving Parts Batch 02 taken directly from the Victory Brewing website:
We like to mix it up. New flavors, new ideas, new ingredients; we welcome them all. In celebration of our penchant for prolific experimentation, we present Moving Parts: The Ever-Evolving IPA. Each release in this series (every four months) celebrates a tweaked ingredient or two, creating an endless array of possible flavor profiles. For us, Moving Parts are a good thing!
Composition
Malt: Pilsner, Medium Crystal, Pale Crystal, CaraPils
Hops: Styrian Goldings, EKG, Bramling Cross
ABV: 6.4%
And now for our impressions of this beer…
- Appearance: Slightly cloudy with the color of orange blossom honey. Fluffy and lingering off white foam that settles down to a thin layer.
- Aroma
- Limpd: Sweet with a pungent note that reminds me a bit of a Belgian style ale (think Belgian Tripel) with a hit of bitter hops and a lot of citrus.
- G-LO: Big citrusy nose with orange zest taking the lead. After that there’s some honey, biscuity malts, and a touch of piney hops.
- Taste
- Limpd: A little soft on the palate. Sweet up front with a good balance and a slightly bitter finish. Syrupy with a hit of hops.
- G-LO: Medium carbonation with a slightly syrupy mouthfeel. Not nearly as bitter as I was expecting. Much more sweet malts upfront followed by a light citrus and pine hoppiness. Ends with a mildly bitter hop finish.
The Verdict
Limpd: Moving Parts Batch 02 was a pleasant, easy drinking beer that wasn’t overly remarkable. This would have been better with more hops character. I’m guessing the English character is a little too muted for my spoiled, West Coast IPA taste. Definitely a good beer, but not a great one, though given its easy drinking nature, one could be tempted to consider this session worthy.
G-LO: When compared to the West Coast IPAs that I usually drink, Moving Parts Batch 02 is very mellow and easy drinking, especially when you consider its 6.4% ABV. While I definitely enjoyed it, I too found this to be lacking the big hop punch that I expect to experience whenever I see IPA on a beer label.
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