We went out to Treehouse Brewing at the start of our tour of Microbrewers of the Pioneer Valley, and I tasted some of Nate Lanier's fine brews. I am not usually a hoppy kind of guy, but his Nate's Citra IPA was enough to make me rethink my old prejudices. In particular, the moment I tasted it I could feel it crying out for fried clams by the sea.
The combination was everything I had envisioned (entasted?). The iodine-seaside-briny sweetness of the clams and their crispy-oily coating was as it should be, and as always the oil from the frying can interfere with taste and digestion.
The blast of citra hops penetrated the oil leaving a perfectly balanced pale ale to elevate and round out the clams. I think any other style of ale would not work so well on all fronts (maybe an Imperial Stout... must try).
As for that old prejudice... I used to like IPAs. As time went on, many brewers did amazing things with many traditional ale types, but the IPAs seemed to become dominated by some hopmonster ideal of squeezing as many IBUs into the bottle as possible without regard for the gestalt of the alse from aroma to finish. I am happy to see craft brewers paying more attention to the whole life cycle of the hops in the beer, moving on from a "gee-whiz!" moment to a more sublime whole-ale tasting experience.
Do also take a moment to see the gorgeous photography on their Tumblr site.