It was to overwhelming fanfare that Firestone Walker arrived at long last in Colorado this year. After issues with licenses and distribution, the California brewer at last made its way over the Rocky Mountains, bringing with it our favorite IPA of 2011: Double Jack.

What we loved:

The taste.
Before Double Jack, the only IPA to give us such a pleasant dose of pineapple, orange skins, and bitter-hopped joy was Pliny the Elder. Yes, we just compared Double Jack to Pliny, because we loved drinking it that much.

The smell.
Known to occasionally make grown men cry, the floral citrus tones and mountain meadow hop aroma of Double Jack was almost overwhelming. The smell alone can make your most vehemently anti-Hop friends drink deeply of Double Jack.

The price.
As craft beers become bigger, more elaborate and more popular, another trend emerges: they get more expensive. While many brewers were reveling in how lavish their price tags had become, Firestone Walker gave the people what they needed: better beer at normal human being prices. Firestone seems to know that unless it’s brewed with diamonds, it shouldn’t cost a fortune. Even their stunning and hard-to-find anniversary ale was competitively priced. For being the best IPA we drank all year, as well as one of the least expensive, we can’t lavish enough praise on Double Jack.