After the lager round, I think people were dying to get their hands on some beers with a bit more bite to them. When I chose the beers in this round I tried to be as broad as I could within the genre and give a full range from the IPA family. I think it is a lot more fun to try four beers that taste completely different rather than carbon copies of each other. My tip for this round was Norway, as when I tasted their entry I really liked it. Apparently though I was clearly in the minority as the voting made clear!
Results – Round 2:
1st place (11 votes): Brewski Red Robot DIPA, Sweden (7.5%, 35kr)
2nd place (5 votes): Tornio Panimo Nattljus NEIPA, Finland, (6.6%, 37kr)
3rd place (3 votes): Amager Wookie IPA, Denmark, (7.2%, 37kr)
3rd place (3 votes): Amundsen Ink & Dagger, Norway, (6.5%, 27kr)
Well, boy was I wrong. Coming first by a massive margin was the Brewski Red Robot DIPA. With a hefty 7.5%, this DIPA proved to be extremely popular. The dusty haze appearance combined with the juicy pineapple aroma was extremely pleasant. On the palate, sour pineapple, mango, apricot and straw combined with a robust body to really liven up the senses. If you like your IPA on the lighter end of the scale though, I still think the Amundsen Ink & Dagger is worth checking out. Light and easy to drink, with a pine and gentle grapefruit backbone, this was the IPA i would probably go back to first. For the tasting we must go with the results and in this instance Brewski came out on top. After two round, Denmark was still in the lead with 15 votes overall, followed by Sweden (13) and Finland (12). Norway was having a bit of a nightmare start and was far back with just a lowly 4 votes. But would the upcoming wildcard round change this? Keep reading!