When a brewery is small—I mean truly small—a ramshackle operation only a few years removed from making single batch beers on a wing and a prayer, then consistency is rarely a common feature of the product lineup. Sometimes it’s a matter of necessity or ingredient access. Other times, it’s simply a desire to experiment as much as possible and cover new territory. But even when the same beers do get made more than once, they’re rarely exactly the same as they were before. Ingredient scarcity alone plays a big role. Can’t get any more of those Citra hops? Well, maybe toss in some Mosaic and see how things play out.
For Chicago’s Pipeworks, the ridiculously named “Ninja vs. Unicorn Double IPA” is perhaps the closest thing they have to a flagship. They’ve been making it since early 2012, but even with its popularity, it’s never been constantly available. Pipeworks is simply too small and too ambitious to devote year-round space to any one beer. And so, fans of a beer like Ninja vs. Unicorn simply keep an eye out for when a new batch hits the shelves, or one of its many single-hopped spin-offs (Citra Ninja, Amarillo Ninja, Simcoe Ninja, etc.).
The one constant is that when you see a fresh batch of Ninja Anything from Pipeworks, you snap it up right quick. Giant IPAs are squarely in their comfort zone, and even if you’ve had the beer before, its newest incarnation is likely to turn over a new leaf in one way or another.