My latest article for The Bulletin, out this week, tackles triple IPA and GoodLife Brewing’s Lava Cave Triple IPA in particular.

Stylistically, there isn’t much to distinguish triple IPA from barleywine. Both feature large amounts of malt, hops and alcohol. Barleywine focuses on rich malt character and full body with an emphasis on hop balance. Triple IPA aims for full hop saturation to extreme levels; the malt body is lighter and drier, serving to support the hops.

GoodLife Brewing Company recently released its own take on the style, Lava Cave Triple IPA. A behemoth of a beer at 11% ABV and 100 IBUs, Lava Cave is available on draft and in cans for a limited time. I picked some up recently to try it and reached out to head brewer Tyler West about his approach to and the challenges of brewing such a beer.

“I do like to utilize the framework of a barleywine, like yeast pitch rates, oxygen added for aerobic fermentation and overall longer fermentation times,” he said via email. The addition of simple sugars boosts alcohol production and helps give the beer a lighter finish. “There are practices we use for all high gravity brewing, but the Triple IPA gets three dry hops, shortly after fermentation.”

There’s more, including some history behind the style and my thoughts on how Lava Cave drinks.