Confession: Boulevard is one of my favorite brewers out there. It’s hard to be impartial when a duel with one of their beers rolls around, but I try very hard to give each brewer a chance in every duel. Second confession: I have a lot of favorite brewers! Let’s be honest, there are a ton of great brewers making great beer these days. We live in a virtual renaissance of craft beer, and that’s part of the reason this site exists, to compare the offerings from all these craft beer artisans and discuss what we think about them.
Now that I’ve gone through confessional, let’s get to the duel. Boulevard has been pumping their Space Camper so much on social media I was starting to wonder if they were trolling me. Since I’ve been seeing it everywhere, I figured I should get it into a duel ASAP. I had a pack of Juice-Z by Liftbridge sitting in the fridge, and figured this would be the perfect dueling partner for the Space Camper. Let the juiciness unfold!
HopDuel Survey
| Better label | Liftbridge Brewing Juice-Z |
| Better aroma | Liftbridge Brewing Juice-Z |
| Better taste | Boulevard Brewing Space Camper |
| Better finish | Boulevard Brewing Space Camper |
| Winner | Boulevard Brewing Space Camper |
Tell us about it
I love the artwork for both of these labels, but it was the color that put me over the top with the Liftbridge Juice-Z. The aromas of these two beers are almost identical, and I went with the Juice-Z because there was a slightly more powerful citrus feel to it. For taste and finish I went with the Space Camper because, just like the aroma for it’s competition, the bright citrus feel of each was just a hair better.
If you like Juicy IPA’s, you will love each of these. While the dueling format only allows for one winner, each of these beers are fantastic examples of the category. I would recommend both to anyone that enjoys drinking beer, specifically to those who “don’t like IPAs because they are too bitter” (I hear this a lot). Let me know your thoughts on the matter in the comments below.
HopDuel 