Parallel 49 Frosted Tips IPA

Parallel 49 Frosted Tips IPA Review

A frosty new wind has blown into town, and with it a new trend: the Winter IPA.

Alongside local debuts from Vancouver Island Brewing and Dead Frog we find Frosted Tips, Parallel 49’s entry into a new category. How new? This is officially the first review on Beer Me BC categorized as a “Winter IPA”.

You’d expect a beer with ‘winter’ in the name to have oodles of spices, or maybe vanilla and fudge or something. P49’s Winter IPA is actually an IPA, as in a beer whose primary notable characteristics come from hops.

Arctic hops? No. Rather than using military-secret winter hops, the idea is that the blend of hop flavours will send your tongue dashing through a winter wonderland on a sleigh ride to glad tidings. So would Jolly St. Nick approve?

The beer pours with a very respectable soapy head, which leaves some lacing as it settles into a crystal-clear golden liquid that looks deceptively like “regular beer”. But we noticed aromas of mandarin orange and pine.

On the palate, it has a medium body, cleaner than you’d expect. The flavours include piney and herbal hop, with some grassiness. It’s not a hop bomb though by any means.

You may or may not want a second pint but Frosted Tips is a beer worth checking out to find out how P49 blends hops to create its Winter IPA.