Hapkin BIPA
Brouwerijen Alken-Maes in Alken, Limburg, Belgium 🇧🇪
IPA - Belgian Regular|
Score
6.67
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Alengrin (11609) reviewed Hapkin BIPA from Brouwerijen Alken-Maes 4 years ago
Appearance - 6 | Aroma - 7 | Flavor - 7 | Texture - 6 | Overall - 5.5
Heineken-owned Alken-Maes has finally felt the winds of change sweeping through the global beer world and, unexpectedly for me, now comes up with this IPA version of Hapkin, a beer I fondly remember from its original Louwaege embodiment, when it was much hoppier (and more 'honest') than what Alken-Maes made of it after they took it over. With that last fact in the back of my head, as I haven't had any Hapkin anymore in years, my expectations for this 'BIPA' are low; I also find 'BIPA' very confusing, as I am used to associate it with 'black IPA' rather than 'Belgian IPA' as it is intended here. Anyway: egg-white, medium thick, irregularly edged, plastery lacing, very stable head on a crystal clear, pale straw blonde beer with golden tinge which becomes deeper with the deposit added (making the beer lightly hazed) and lively sparkling. Aroma of banana peel, red apple, sweet ripe pear, white bread dough, damp straw, flower-based perfume, some green kiwi, hints of cream, cold French fries, iron, stewed turnip, 'herbes de Provençe', soap, old cotton cloth, pumice. Spritzy, medium-fruity onset, sweetish but not overdone, hinting at banana, pear and red apple with a dash of apricot, sharply carbonated with rather coarse carbonation - perhaps a far echo of the fact that the original Hapkin was, all things considered, one of those beers mimicking Duvel, a notably high-carbonated beer. Supple mouthfeel, coarsened by said carbonation, an old bread- and leftover dough-like maltiness with grainy edges and something subtly metallic, carrying onwards these fruity notes (banana peel) and outspoken 4-vinyl-guaiacol (clove), leading to an earthy, bit herbal hop bitter ending, in which I can swear I detect coriander seed as well, travelling alongside the hops. Bit soapy and gypsum-like in the end too, but this metallic effect also noticeably 'zings' about after swallowing. Few microbreweries and none of the macrobreweries in Belgium understand the nature of anything IPA-like and of course I was not expecting Alken-Maes to produce a full-blown American style IPA by any means - but this one feels like just another mundane 'blondje' for me. It is a bit more 'perfumed' than the average blonde and this probably justifies the IPA connection in the eyes of its makers, but I fail to see even a 'moderate' Belgian style IPA here. In all, not too shabby for a macro-brewed Belgian ale, but it is about time that laws are created and enforced to prevent the abuse of the term IPA by ignorant brewers...
Sloefmans (15389) reviewed Hapkin BIPA from Brouwerijen Alken-Maes 4 years ago
Appearance - 8 | Aroma - 6.5 | Flavor - 6 | Texture - 5 | Overall - 6.5
Good, dense & fine light-yellowish head, leaving shards of lace over very lightly veiled metallic golden beer. Continental hoppy nose, green herbs & weeds, bit insectoid, sharpish. Bitterish, light-coloured malts displaying a bit fiery MF. Dry with again herbal hops. Faint bananaester but generally quite dry. Fiery & fizzy feel. Quite slick and oily underneath, medium bodied. Hops dominate, which is better than many Belgian "IPA's''. But the harshness speaks of the use of hopextract, IMO. Thanks to Stef!