It’s not often that I get as excited about a beer as I am about RJ Rockers Hop Quake, a beer that the brewery calls an “oatmeal IPA.” I am excited about this beer, though, and have been since I first tried it on tap at Taco Mac back in June of 2015. I had a bottle at home as well, you see, and as sometimes happens this delayed me in cracking it open and enjoying it.

Yet, crack open and enjoy that bottle I did on a warm summer afternoon at the end of August. By then, my bottle had about 7 months of age on it, though that age came refrigerated in my second DBR (Dedicated Beer Refrigerator). Ironically, that Hop Quake honestly might have been better at 7 months than it was fresh on tap.

From the label:

With a groundbreaking combo of caramel malt, flaked oats, and a crisp hoppy aftershock, this unique IPA is set to rattle your fridge and topple your taste buds. We advise that you drop, take cover, hold on tight, and turn it up. You can’t escape the hop quake!

RJ Rockers Hop Quake has an alcohol content of 6.2% by volume with 67 IBUs. I paid $6 for a 20-ounce mug at Taco Mac and the beer runs $9.99 a six-pack here in Georgia. This is a year-round beer, and as RJ Rockers tells it, the only IPA they bottle. It’s brewed with Simcoe, Cascade, and Centennial hops.

RJ Rockers Hop Quake pours to a cloudy orange amber color with a medium sized head of creamy foam and a very inviting nose of caramel malt, snappy citrus and peppery hops. Taking a sip, the beer has a solid caramel malt foundation up front followed by waves of hops: first citrusy grapefruit peel, then resiny pine tar, then a long dry and lingering herbal bitterness.

The stats of 67 IBUs don’t do this beer justice, but rest assured that this is just a wonderful, massively bitter, in your face IPA. I don’t get the oatmeal so much (perhaps the barley malt and all those hops crowd it out), but I salute RJ Rockers for bringing us this truly delightful whopper of an IPA. I loved it on tap and in the bottle, and I think you will too.



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