Sean and I went to Naja’s Place for their 3rd Annual IPA Festival in Redondo Beach, CA on Saturday and I have mixed feelings about the experience. I LOVE IPA’s and I was really excited that they were serving 70 different IPA’s on tap. There was some major line issues when there was only two bartenders serving the whole place from one single-file line.

The beer was pretty amazing. I had the Avery Maharaja Imperial IPA (10.54% ABV 102 IBU’s) which pours an amber/gold color white head. I am surprised how subtle the IPA was and it just hits you a little in the back of your throat. I tasted a bit of grapefruit and orange honey which makes the hoppyness of this beer sneak-up on you. Sean had the Hair of the Dog Blue Dot Double IPA (7% ABV and 80 IBU’s) which was gold with a white head with heavy lacing. It had a corn-taste to it with a nice mellow-hops finish. I liked both of these very much. The Avery was more of my style.

We also had the Stone Ruination Double Dry Hopped IPA (7.7% ABV with over 100 IBU’s) which was fantastic, but I have come to expect as much from Stone. It pours gold with a white head and has a great mouthfeel. It does what I wanted all day, it was so hoppy it gave me a bit of a dry-mouth. It tasted of grapefruit and hops, and was incredibly light considering how strong it finished. I would drink this all the time. Sean had the Strand Black IPA (7.8% ABV with 85 IBU’s) which was insanely dark with a white head. I said it’s like “a chocolate-coffee ice cream beer” with hops. It was pretty amazing stuff. Not the beer to drink before dinner! Lastly, I had the Mad River Steelhead Double IPA (8.6% ABV ?IBU’s) which was a cloudy-orange color with little white head. This was a bit on the sweet-side for me but it tasted clean and not overly-complex.

Anyways, besides the line issues the people in there were creepy. There was a group who wouldn’t stop talking about condoms and Viagra next to us and I watched some guy smell another girls hair…that wasn’t in her group of friends. I politely asked her if she knew those guys after they walked away and she said no. I told her she might want to stay away from those guys and she was very grateful and thanked me. Super creepy.