Beer of the Week: Ska Brewing's Modus Hoperandi

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This article originally ran on the AOL website Slashfood.

By now, news of another India pale barely merits mention, an occurrence as common as an Alaskan snowstorm.

But every blue moon, an IPA arrives to jolt our jaded taste buds, causing us to thank a higher deity for this heavenly hoppy elixir. So let’s bow down and worship a little green can filled with Modus Hoperandi, a brew as skunky and stinky as a little green herb. 

“We used to smoke a lot of weed,” jokes Dave Thibodeau, cofounder of Durango, Colorado’s Ska Brewing Company. Since releasing the “old-man bitter” brew, it’s rocketed to the top of Ska’s bestseller list. “It completely caught us off-guard, which is a good problem to have,” Thibodeau says.

The secret, he says, is a “hearty heap of hops.” That’s for certain: Modus’ aroma is a swoon-worthy blend of pine trees and halved grapefruits, an odor muscular enough to double as smelling salts. The copper-orange IPA is thick and resinous, the white head sticking to the glass like a spider web. Each sip (and you will sip this 6.8 percent ABV flavor bomb) coats your tongue with creamy bitterness, with a gentle swipe of malt sweetness to curtail the citric overload.

It’s nearly too much, but then we always crave another can. Is this how addictions begin?