OK, that’s an odd one. Name is Kuka IPA, the subtitle is “ale brewed with maca root.” Made by the Andean Brewing Co., in Blauvelt New York, certainly in the foothills of that part of New York bordering Peru. Right? I didn’t even know what maca root was, but the Wikipedia says it was found at “the Meseta of BomBom close to Junin Lake” in 1843. Riiiight, just outside the Bronx i’m sure. And then it says: “women had to be protected from the Inca warriors, as reportedly they became ambitiously virile from eating such quantities of maca.”
So this is America, so obviously we’ll put it into beer because, well because America. USA! USA! USA! The extra odd thing about this beer is that it’s gold-ish almost to amber, but it’s completely opaque. What it really looks like is fresh raw cider, but it smells like a very hopped IPA. So far so good, and so far, so odd.
The moment of taste: whoah, that’s really odd. There’s beer, there’s hops, but there’s something else in there, must be the maca, a bitter and leathery taste, like an old shoe that was worn while stomping radishes. The Inca thought it was a delicacy, but “studies have shown a very low acceptance of the particular maca taste in consumers when first exposed to it. Apparently, the taste is acquired,” meaning that if you already like radish shoes, then you’ll simply love maca.
Huh. More sips and my tongue’s able to separate out more of the beer and hop tastes to better isolate the maca. Slightly sweet, if you’ve ever eaten a raw plantain, then think of that. Or biting the white part of a leek. Huh, this is odd beer. Not terrible, but i think it might take a while to ‘acquire’ this taste. I can see why they tried this with an IPA, the strong hops are like an overcoat, masking the maca from indecent exposure. And trust me, they needed some whomping hops to do that.
The beer reports itself as 6.2% alk, probably a good idea in this case, not a bad thought to bump it up to 7.2% in v2.0 if that ever happens. It’s a physically thick beer, the last few drops came out of the bottle with more of a drab than a drip, and getting to the bottom of this glass it seems even thicker. Not sure if it’s my imagination, but my head is starting to feel a little funny here. It’s like i’m over-alert but it’s different than a caffeine or nicotine alertness. There’s no heart-rate bump and no fine-focused awareness like with caff or nick. It’s like a relaxed intentness, makes me feel like i want to breathe deeper and makes my feet fidgety.
OK, am going to set this review down for a quarter hour and try to figure out what exactly is going on here…
Wow, and i mean wow. Maca root is something real, unlike most goofy diet supplements. This was my first beer o’ the evening, and at 6.2% alcohol it shouldn’t have done this to me. Not exactly a 90-pound weakling here, and i have dranked beer before. I recall that the first beer in your life hits you with a hammer, but i am, let’s just say, “experienced”. I normally have a new beer for review before anything else in the day, freshly arrived at home, when my palate is clear. And 6.2% alk is not enough to make me swimmy. But this one did.
Not really drunk, but all squirelly. I feel the alk, which i shouldn’t. I feel calm but ready to go, tingly in the calves and mind rolling from thing to thing, with a strange kind of concentration but unable to groove on any one thing for long. Wonder if this is what ADHD feels like? Interferes with the ability to write, like so many words are just beyond the tip of my tongue.
Yeah, i can see what this does to me and extrapolate what “copious amounts of maca” might do to an Inca warrior. Totally can imagine running off into the jungle with a club, and if we don’t find the enemy, just might thud a few unlucky sloths on the noggin.
The aftertaste of this beer clings to the sides of the tongue, where the ‘bitter’ buds reside. The taste got better, as in less odd, as the glass emptied. But the psycho-physio effects are remarkable. Feel sped but without the nasty effects of normal upping compounds. Alas, don’t really feel “ambitiously virile” but then again i only had one bottle of this, lucky for the lady sloths.
Not sure how to rate this drink. It’s not really an IPA, just a delivery vehicle for maca. The taste is not great compared to real beer IPA’s, this might rate a 4 or 5 purely as a beer. Reading more on Wiki, maca contains “(1R,3S)-1-methyltetrahydro-carboline-3-carboxylic acid, a molecule which is reported to exert many activities on the central nervous system.” Damn slappy true there. Now i’m all cooked up so won’t bother reviewing another beer this evening, wouldn’t be able to be objective, and this should wear off by tomorrow. Hopefully.
What i can tell you is that there’s something going on inside a bottle of Kuka IPA, try it and judge for yourself. Holy crap, this beer is nutso. As a beer i’d rate it a 4.1 but as an interesting experience this gets an 8.1 so might as well split the diffy and call it at 6.1 …but don’t call that a low review, you’ll have to try this yourself.