Welcome back to FTW’s Beverage of the Week series. Here, we mostly chronicle and review beers, but happily expand that scope to any beverage that pairs well with sports. Yes, even cookie dough whiskey.
I hadn’t heard of HenHouse Brewing, but a PR email put me onto a California brewery with some cool labels. Then a quick search suggested their Big Chicken Double IPA was a wait-in-line beer on par with Pliny the Younger or Heady Topper.
Needless to say, I was intrigued. But since I’m in Wisconsin and HenHouse is one of the few beers outside my grasp up here (this is not a complaint, Wisconsin is wonderful and there are roughly six breweries between my house and the Madison airport, 30 minutes away), the company was gracious enough to send me a couple of their beers for review. A couple of heavy, complex beers with a high bar to clear.
Does HenHouse belong on the beer snobbery tier reserved for breweries like Treehouse or Trillium or Russian River? Could they live up to the legitimately impressive art of their labels? Let’s tuck into a couple offerings and see how it turns out.
IPA 2025: The IPA of Tomorrow (with Cerebral Brewing): B
You can smell those hops right from the pour, but it’s not as overpowering as you’d expect. It’s not especially pine-y, but it’s not overwhelmingly citric either. The first sip bears this out.
There’s a lot of fruit there, but it’s not necessarily the orange/pine mashup you’d expect from an IPA of status. I’m getting some cantaloupe in there, maybe some tropical fruit — papaya, pineapple, etc. It starts off sweet before snapping off dry and a little bitter.
That’s the whole vibe here; lots of bold flavors that change throughout but nothing overpowering. It checks a lot of boxes — the bitter hoppiness of a traditional IPA, the fruitiness of a hazy — and adds a few more thanks to its tropical overtones. It’s a lot to deal with, which is good, but I’m also not sure how many of these I could drink in one sitting.
That doesn’t mean I don’t like it. I do! If you like complex, but balanced, IPAs this is going to be a slam dunk for you. I’m into it, but one is enough for me.
The Greatest Generator Barrel-Aged Doppelbock: B+
It pours copper and rich with the limited head you’d expect from something that’s spent the last 13 months aging in a (Templeton) rye barrel. That takes over the scent, giving off whiskey vibes with a malty undercurrent. It clocks in at 8.5 percent ABV and you can tell off the top that it’s gonna be a boozy ride.
You definitely understand it’s a strong beer from the first sip, but it’s more complex than that. The rye stands out but doesn’t burn. Instead it melds with the bready goodness of the bock and creates a dense, flavorful brew. There’s a lot going on, but unlike other beers where it comes in layers this piles it all on up front and lets you sort through it.
It’s malty, sweet and rye braided through each other in a beer that tastes thicker than it pours. It gets better as it warms a little in the glass, opening up to softer flavors. It’s like drinking a painting; a swirl of colors and styles inside a single canvas. It’s definitely a sipper, but it’s a great special occasion beer I’m at least a little bummed I don’t have access to out here in Wisconsin.
Would I drink it instead of a Hamm's?
Welcome to a new feature on these reviews; a pass/fail mechanism where I compare whatever I’m drinking to my baseline cheap beer. That’s the standby from the land of sky-blue waters, Hamm’s. So the question to answer is: on a typical day, would I drink Henhouse’s beers over a cold can of Hamm’s?
Yes, even though the two styles I tried were extremely different from a basic lager. The depth of flavor Henhouse brings makes their beers inherently more sippable and keeps the replay value high. I’m looking forward to digging up more of their stuff out here in the midwest.
