Even though many IPAs are “citrusy,” men often shudder at the idea of a beer that tastes like fruit. A mysterious new brew named Stochasticity Grapefruit Slam IPA takes that notion head-on, and deliciously dominates it.
A bottle of this new mystery elixir appeared at my door a few weeks back. Of course the sketchy nature of the delivery wasn’t going to stop me from drinking it… because beer. Plus I’m not outspoken enough to be on anyone’s hit list, and my life isn’t valuable enough to warrant an anonymous attack.
It’s clear that the brewer wanted the beer to be taken on its own merit. I decided to play their game and drink it without researching from whom it came. It’s actually quite a relief to be without pre-conceived notions about a beer for once. I discovered afterwards when doing a domain lookup that they went to great lengths to hide their identity, making me feel even better about playing along.
The reward was an incredible albeit unknown IPA that brought actual grapefruit to the table instead of just flavors produced by hops. Dry graprefruit peel is added as if it were a hop and it plays perfectly with the other citrus naturally created from Centennial hops. If you’ve ever spent a night drinking Greyhounds, you know that for some reason the 3rd and 4th always taste better than the first. That’s exactly what this beer is like. The aroma and bitter-sweet flavor hits right away, but somehow Stochasticity Grapefruit Slam IPA gets even better with every passing sip.
Now it was time to figure out from where it came. It was clearly a California style IPA, but there’s no shortage of brewers across the country making those. Only a craft brewer would try to pull off this project, but it had to be large enough to put out beer without taking credit. It’s also being distributed in over 40 states, so they obviously have a large footprint. I decided that my guess was Stone Brewing Co.
According to the internet, that guess is correct. The Stochasticity Project is a new line of limited edition, experimental beers meant to push the scientific boundaries of brewing. They aren’t doing it for the sake of novelty though. Stochasticity is doing it for the betterment of beer everywhere. If the followup beers are even half as good as Grapefruit Slam IPA, I’ll be stocking up on all of them.
The Stochasticity website is built to show all sorts of brewing science and is well worth tooling around on.ce refreshing and bracing in its citrusy bitterness.