Pepe Nero - Goose Island

Vitals:

Name: Pepe Nero

Style: Farmhouse Ale ("Belgian Style Ale" is on the bottle)

IBU: 30

ABV: 6.0%

Gravity: ??

Purchased at: Riley's Wines of the World

Descriptions:

Appearance: Pours midnight black; NO light makes it through this bad boy. One finger of light milk-chocolate colored head that is quick to leave and doesn't lace much. A formidable cap is left atop this beer, though. Probably the best cap I've seen on a beer in a few years, maybe ever.

Smell: This beer smells...unique. You get roasted, earthy malts and almost a coffee-ish smell, yet you get a spiciness as well. The spiciness, in my mind, is probably ground black peppercorn and maybe anise. You get a faint chocolate smell, but the smell is mainly what I've previously described.

Taste: The chocolate is much more pronounced here and leads off the experience with sweetness. YOu also get some faint fig/date flavor, but not a whole lot. The beer evolves with the sweet roasted malt into more of a coffee flavor and, as it rolls back down your tongue, you really get slammed with the peppercorn taste. This beer hides its 6.0% ABV well and provides you with a very unique drinking experience.

Mouthfeel: VERY heavy and even creamy. This beer leaves your mouth surprisingly dry as well, which is a bit of a detractor here because it combines with the creaminess to give you a bit of unpleasantness in the mouthfeel.

Overall Grade: C (perhaps a B or B+ to dark/heavy beer drinkers)

Comments: I'm not totally feeling this one, though I can appreciate how unique it is. I would give it a try if you're into stouts/porters or other dark types of beers. It's a solid, but not great, effort that is unique enough to warrant paying $7-8 for a big bomber of it. Enjoy, and keep expanding your beer tasting horizons!

Cheers,

Hurls

Abt - New Glarus (Thumbprint Series)

Vitals:

Name: Abt

Style: Quadruppel (Quad)

IBU: ??

ABV: 9.75%

Gravity: ~20 deg. Plato

Purchased at: Riley's Wines of the World

Descriptions:

Appearance: Pours a deep, dark brown; looks like a glass of chocolate. You get a finger and a half of light-brown head. OK retention, with great lacing and a great cap. I honestly cannot tell if this beer has a little or a lot of carbonation because it's so dark.

Smell: Smells like raisins, figs, candied brown sugar, dark rum, and sweet caramel malt. You get a faint hint of chocolate as well. Definitely roasted malts - I'm expecting this to have a huge malt backbone to it.

Taste: The caramelized sugar and malts are up front, followed by the spiciness of the Belgian yeast. You don't really get that nice Belgian yeasty funk to it, though, which is unfortunate. You get some raisin/fig taste as well at the finish with a slightly boozy rum-like taste. This beer is well balanced, but I almost feel like there's too much going on, muddling things up for my palate.

Mouthfeel: Small amount of carbonation. This beer is heavy and syrupy on the mouth and REALLY stays on your palate for a while.

Overall Grade: B

Comments: This is a solid beer; not my favorite, but definitely a good intro to the Quad style. This would be much much better to sip by a fire in the winter than to drink on a hot summer day. That's one of the biggest problems I have with these dark beers during the summer - I want to try them out to give them a shot, but I don't feel like conditions are optimal for truly appreciating them as I should. Oh well - give this a shot, as it's only available for a limited time (as all Thumbprint Series beers are). This strikes me as something that might age well into the winter, so you could get it now and hold onto it to enjoy it during some nice cold weather.

Cheers,

Hurls

Smoked Rye Ale - New Glarus (Thumbprint Series)

So, I got an email while I was out of town from my friend Jhin, who was telling me about this Smoked Rye Ale he had tried from New Glarus. I will admit that I had considered trying it but figured I probably wouldn't like it. However, I found Jhin's wording interesting: "The most interesting beer I've had (doesn't mean it's the best). Smoked beer...I have never tasted anything like this before."

As a result, I had to throw it into a build-your-own 6-pack at Riley's when I was over there. This is part of what makes me LOVE having this beer blog as my pet project on the side...it forces you to expand your horizons, try new things, and appreciate things about each of them that you wouldn't have thought that you could. One of my readers asked me "why on earth would you try a blueberry lager?! (Wild Blue, huge mistake). The only reason I'd try something like that is that I want to see how it is, to see if it's quality, or to see if there's anything I can appreciate about it. I want to build my experiences in life (which the reader emphatically agrees with), and drinking is no different. So, next time you're considering trying something new - JUST TRY IT! Bottoms up and enjoy!

Vitals:

Name: Smoked Rye Ale

Style: Smoked Ale? I don't think you can even classify this into a category!

IBU: ??

ABV: 8.5%

Gravity: ??

Purchased at: Riley's Wines of the World

Descriptions:

Appearance: Pours a deep, rich, reddish/brown color. The head is almost non-existent, thus there is no lacing or cap. It seems to be very low in carbonation as well. It looks like a lazy beer, not too much going on from the look of it.

Smell: WOW, so you get about a tenth of a second of sweet malt smell before the smell of smoke dominates your nostrils. This actually smells GOOD, as odd as it is. The beer reminds me of a campfire/bonfire with possibly some meat cooking (because the smoke smells a bit salty as well).

Taste: This is possibly the most interesting beer I've ever had. I can now totally relate to Jhin's comments. So you start out with a brief caramel sweetness, only to get a spicy bite/kick of rye flavor that is also short lived. After that your mouth gets enveloped in a smooth smokiness that sort of "sets in" on your, rather than abruptly hammers you. The smokey taste builds on your palate as it rolls back your tongue and down your throat; it seems to get bolder as it goes! This tastes (to me) a little bit like smoked ham/bacon that may be a bit well done. At this point I am so confused; am I having a beer or a meal?

Mouthfeel: Definitely on the heavier side of a medium body. There's nearly no carbonation, but the creamy texture goes very well with the smooth smokey flavor.

Overall Grade: B (B+ for interesting/unique aspect)

Comments: This is probably not a beer that I'd drink regularly (or perhaps ever again) but I'm so glad that I tried it, because it is SUCH an interesting/innovative beer. I can appreciate this one for sure, despite its odd flavor. The folks at New Glarus never cease to amaze me with some of the stuff they put on the shelves...it's something I will miss when we move away from Madison :-(.

Cheers,

Hurls

Harp Lager - Guinness Ltd.

Vitals:

Name: Harp Lager

Style: European Pale Lager

IBU: ??

ABV: 5.0%

Gravity: ??

Purchased at: Trixie's Liquor

Descriptions:

Appearance: Pours a pale gold or light yellow. Lots of visible carbonation and lots of head (1.5 fingers worth). The cap was very weak but, very surprisingly, the lacing was absolutely awesome. Very unexpected indeed.

Smell: Not much here, really. You get some sweet malt and a little bit of grassy hops maybe? BORING!

Taste: You get this weird skunky taste from the outset with a tiny bit of sweet/grainy malt. Finishes with a strong and lasting blast of citrus (lemon, specifically) taste that isn't a detractor, but doesn't improve the beer either. Nothing about this sticks out as being great, or even good. This is a very boring beer.

Mouthfeel: Very very very light bodied; you could drink this all day if the taste appeals to you. This beer actually leaves a bit of a lingering feeling on your mouth. It's adequately carbonated, even excessively bubbly to an extent.

Overall Grade: D+

Comments: For my money I'd rather have a Bud Light or Miller Lite over this (not Coors Light, though). Doesn't leave me with any good impressions; just a boring macrobrew owned by Guinness. I would definitely avoid this one. If you're looking for drinkability and don't care about taste, get one of the aforementioned light beers. If you want something that's tasty (if I am going to drink a beer that is 5% ABV as opposed to a 4.2%ish of a light beer I am going to want something that's tastier) then you should look elsewhere.

Cheers,

Hurls

Hop Mountain - Old Dominion Brewing Company

Vitals:

Name: Hop Mountain

Style: American Pale Ale

IBU: ??

ABV: 5.6%

Gravity: ??

Purchased at: Harris Teeter in Herndon, VA

Descriptions:

Appearance: Pours a deep ruby color with a finger of tan head, which quickly disappears. Great lacing and a very thin cap are left in its wake. The beer is translucent, but with no noticeable carbonation.

Smell: Floral and piney hops all the way with dark malts hanging out in the background. The malts definitely seem to be much darker, roasted, caramelized, etc. than typical pale ale malts. The beer smells good but it's nothing incredibly special or anything.

Taste: This is an interesting drink...starts sweet with the malts and then rolls into a muted piney hop taste, then into sweetness again. The second layer of sweetness is mostly citrus in nature, orange/grapefruit/pineapple/apple/etc. This is a very nice complexity they have going on here, but it's disappointing that you get only mostly hop bitterness and not quite as much hop flavor. I guess maybe the citrus hops flavor that would be near the end gets washed out by all of the other complex citrusy goodness they have going on there.

Mouthfeel: Light side of medium bodied with a moderate level of carbonation. This beer has an oily feel to it and it coats every square inch of your palate. Decent overall mouthfeel; again, nothing special there.

Overall Grade: B

Comments: A slightly above average beer, but pretty good by Northern VA craft standards. Definitely worth a try but missing that hop flavor sucks a bit; I considered giving it a B- because of that, but it's such an interesting drink and a very complex beer, so that won those lost points back.

Cheers,

Hurls

Hazed and Infused - Boulder Beer Company

Vitals:

Name: Hazed and Infused

Style: American Pale Ale (dry-hopped)

IBU: ??

ABV: 4.85%

Gravity: 12.5 Plato

Purchased at: Trixie's Liquor

Descriptions:

Appearance: Pours a hazy/translucent amber/brown in color, which is darker than I expected it to be. You get about 1.5 fingers of foamy head, which is off-white in color. Decent retention, but the lacing is great on this beer. You get a respectable cap after the head is gone, but nothing extremely memorable.

Smell: Piney hops pair with citrusy fruits here (grapefruit, to venture a guess). There is some sweet maltiness in the background, giving it the smell of a very balanced beer. 

Taste: Okay, so to give a quick preface to this taste review I want to give an idea of what dry-hopped, as this beer is strongly advertised to be, actually is. So typically when you get your wort (the concoction that has a lot of sugars from the grains and adjuncts that the yeast will consume to produce alcohol) you also do a hop boil usually. Boiling the hops for longer periods of time will cause more alpha acids and hop oils to be released into the beer. This will result in the bitterness that you get and some of the hoppy taste and flavor. However, hops that are added very LATE in the boil, or after the boil (as they are in dry-hopping), typically are used to add flavor and aroma without the bitterness of the hop oils.

Having gotten THAT out of the way, you get a mostly sweet, almost caramel, malt flavor up front. The hops are VERY muted in this beer and borderline on being completely weak. You get some citrus and piney hops toward the end of the taste with grapefruit and maybe lemon/orange. This beer is not nearly as balanced as it smells and I prefer my beers to err on the hoppy side rather than the malty side. Oh well, can't win 'em all.

Mouthfeel: Pretty darn thin here on the mouthfeel, this is a VERY light APA. The carbonation is also low, which gives you a good, pleasant drinkability. Based on the ABV and mouthfeel you could drink this beer all day if you felt so inclined.

Overall Grade: C

Comments: This beer is what its grade indicates - very average. This honestly tastes like someone had a malty lager and then dry hopped it slightly to try to pass it off as an APA. Dry hopping, as I said, has a lot to do with the aroma, which explains why it smelled balanced but wasn't at all. This is a very forgettable beer, but it's definitely within the realm of possibilities for being a sessionable beer. Keep looking - you can do better than this.

Cheers,

Hurls

Arctic Panzer Wolf - Three Floyds Brewing

Vitals:

Name: Arctic Panzer Wolf

Style: American IIPA

IBU: ??

ABV: 9.0%

Gravity: ??

Purchased at: Trixie's Liquor

Descriptions:

Appearance: Pours a golden hazy yellow; MUCH lighter than I had expected for a IIPA. You get a very bubbly-white finger of head that fades quickly and leaves extremely weak (for an IIPA) lacing. You get a very thin, but complete, cap left over the top of the beer.

Smell: This is a FANTASTIC smelling beer - citrus hops pair with lemon and grapefruit and you can faintly detect some pale malt in the background, suggesting more balance than you'd initially anticipate. You get a faint floral aroma as well, but the citrus-y goodness seems to dominate the nose in a great way.

Taste: You get a bit of malt sweetness up front with the grapefruit and maybe (?) pineapple. This beer is EXTREMELY hop-forward, which hits as a citrus note with the bitter taste of lemon (or lemon rind). The finish is piney in taste and really lingers in your mouth/throat. The balance that won Dreadnaught for me simply is not there with this one. It's still a very good beer, just completely hop-centric with little to no malt backbone. Decent, but not great, job at hiding the 9.0% ABV.

Mouthfeel: Not much carbonation (which is very odd for Three Floyds beers), medium bodied and extremely dry. This beer leaves you completely puckered up and dried out in your mouth.

Overall Grade: B+

Comments: The grade given here is a function of the style and my high expectations for all Three Floyds beer. For some reason it isn't on their website, which limits the info that I could post on the IBUs at least. This is a very good IIPA, just not balanced enough and a little dry on the finish. Definitely worth a try for all of you hop disciples out there!

Cheers,

Hurls

Raging Bitch - Flying Dog Brewery

Vitals:

Name: Raging Bitch

Style: Belgian IPA

IBU: 60

ABV: 8.3%

Gravity: 18 deg. Plato

Purchased at: Harris Teeter in Herndon, VA

Descriptions:

Appearance: Pours a deep orange that slightly shifts to amber in the light. About a finger and a half of off-white (tannish) head. Good retention and cap, but very weak lacing. Sparse carbonation bubbles rise throughout this pretty beer. 

Smell: Smells spicy and you get that funky (in a good way) Belgian yeast smell. You get some banana in the smell as well, and a very faint floral and possibly citrus hop aroma. The Belgian yeast really dominates the nose, as it usually does - this one smells good but there's really nothing special here.

Taste: The taste gives you some almost piney (maybe floral) hops to go with the Belgian sweetness up front. The yeast and malt in the middle is good but it doesn't really balance the beer out. The worst part of this beer is after the hop finish you get this aftertaste that is like...aspirin...ugh, it really ruins what is otherwise a pretty good beer. You also get a slightly boozy flavor, but at 8.3% that's to be expected so I think it hides the ABV moderately well.

Mouthfeel: Creamy and full mouthfeel; drinks smoothly with a very slight astringency. The beer is almost syrupy in its feel and you don't really get much carbonation here either.

Overall Grade: B-

Comments: The aftertaste truly ruined a solid B+ effort from Flying Dog on this one. I was otherwise happy with the beer until that stabbed into my palate. Ugh. This beer is worth a shot if the aftertaste was a fluke, but after writing up my review I looked on beeradvocate.com and it seemed like others were getting it as well. I'd probably steer clear of this one unless you're really into Belgian IPAs.

Cheers,

Hurls

Satin Solstice Imperial Stout - Central Waters Brewing

Vitals:

Name: Satin Solstice Imperial Stout

Style: American Imperial Stout

IBU: ??

ABV: 7.5%

Gravity: ??

Purchased at: Trixie's Liquor

Descriptions:

Appearance: Pours a dark brown, or maybe black, with about half a finger of head that is coffee/milk-chocolate colored. Very poor retention, weak cap, weak lacing. 

Smell: Smells very good! Roasted coffee and even a bit like a tootsie roll; you get a faint smell of chocolate, caramelized brown sugar, and maybe some fig? I'm not so great with dark beers at this point for lack of experience.

Taste: HEAVILY roasted malts hammer you from the outset, with the taste of black coffee coming in at the back end. The chocolate comes through a little bitter, more like baking chocolate that is unsweetened. This beer is very solid and hides the ABV very well. You also get some slightly earthy hops lingering in the background. Make no mistake, this is not a very complex tasting beer, but it serves its purpose and is solid.

Mouthfeel: Heavy heavy heavy, but a VERY smooth drink, doesn't leave you dried out in the least, but honestly gives your mouth a nice coat of coffee/cocoa taste. Pleasant mouthfeel for me, aside from how heavy the beer is.

Overall Grade: B

Comments: This is a pretty solid offering for a heavy, dark beer. It's also the first Central Waters I've tried and I can say I'm not disappointed. This is a good enough dark beer to get me excited to try some more dark beers this winter. This beer would honestly be great on a cold winter evening by a roaring fire...the summer heat doesn't do it the justice that it deserves. Wait for the weather to get cold and snatch up a few of these for a snowy night!

Cheers,

Hurls

White Hawk Select IPA - Mendocino Brewing Company

Vitals:

Name: White Hawk Select IPA

Style: American IPA

IBU: ??

ABV: 7.0%

Gravity: ??

Purchased at: Trixie's Liquor

Descriptions:

Appearance: You get a deep amber color on the pour, almost light-brownish. Carbonation is barely detectable to the eye, but this beer is hazy hazy hazy! You get a half finger of head that is slightly off-white with a weak cap, low retention, but pretty solid lacing, actually.

Smell: HEAVY pine and citrus hop notes mix with a faint hint of toasted malts here, leading me to expect something much much less than a super balanced beer. This beer smells quite good, but it's nothing unique or special, ya know?

Taste: This beer is extremely sweet initially, providing a surprising balance (given the smell). Unlike many IPAs, which have an aggressive, sharp, bitter bite, the hop flavor and bitterness builds in strength and then rolls off into the aftertaste. Brilliant tasting experience. The taste itself is comprised mostly of piney/grassy hops, a little citrus up front (grapefruit, anyone?), and the malt sweetness that kicks it all off. This beer actually hides its 7.0% ABV better than most.

Mouthfeel: Medium body and not as astringent as most IPAs are. You really get no carbonation in this beer, which always makes me feel like the beer is stale or something, even though I know it's not. Overall this is a pretty smooth drink, but nothing really stands out in this section.

Overall Grade: B-

Comments: This is a solid American IPA with a great drinking experience. There are a lot of beers I'd choose over this one, but by the same token I'd choose this over a lot of others. The issue is that the taste isn't quite up to par with the actual experience of the taste. By saying that I mean that I enjoy how the hop profile and bitterness is cumulative rather than just an errant spike in the experience...makes for a smoother drink and would probably be less offensive to those who are not quite as big on hops. If someone hands you one of these, don't turn it down, but if you're paying for something you can most likely do a bit better if you know what you like and what to look for.

Cheers,

Hurls

Sierra Nevada Pale Ale - Sierra Nevada Brewing Company

Vitals:

Name: Sierra Nevada Pale Ale

Style: American Pale Ale

IBU: 37

ABV: 5.6%

Gravity: 13 deg. Plato

Purchased at: Trixie's Liquor

Descriptions:

Appearance: Pours a translucent amber color with virtually no carbonation bubbles. You get about a finger of foamy white head, which has decent retention and a thin cap. What really strikes me about this beer is the lacing is AMAZING...looks delicious.

Smell: You get slightly more of a malty smell here than a lot of hoppier APAs I've had recently (e.g. Hopalicious). Piney and citrus hops with some orange peel thrown in there as well. You get some lemon smell in there, but not much. This is just a damn good smelling beer.

Taste: Pretty much perfectly balanced. You get citrus flavor and hops up front and then a bitter, piney hop finish. The malts back the beer steadily the whole way through. I can truly say that this is a very rare find...a macro-brew quantity/distribution with close to a craft beer taste. This definitely beats a lot of sub-par-to-mediocre craft APAs I've had, but I still would stick with something like a Hopalicious for my money.

Mouthfeel: Medium body with very light carbonation. This beer is actually very drinkable and doesn't have much astringency to it that some pale ales give you. Overall a pleasant drinkability/mouthfeel experience.

Overall Grade: B+

Comments: This is a very solid beer that I'd pick over plenty of others. I truly do mean what I said about having a pretty solid craft brew taste but having the advantage of being a huge scale macro brew that you can get most anywhere. If you're looking to try out pale ales to see if you'll like the style I would suggest that you absolutely start here!

Cheers,

Hurls

Spaten Lager - Spaten-Franziskaner Brau

Vitals:

Name: Spaten Lager

Style: German Lager

IBU: ??

ABV: 5.2%

Gravity: 11.7 OG

Purchased at: Trixie's Liquor

Descriptions:

Appearance: Pours a pale clear yellow; great visibility through the beer. Nearly no carbonation. 1.5 fingers of white head with a nice foamy cap, decent lacing (surprisingly) but not much retention.

Smell: Not too much here - light pale malt smell and some sweet grassy hops. This smells like a typical European lager, nothing great but nothing offensive here...very forgettable smell.

Taste: Very mild flavor; the malt is slightly sweet and you even get a slightly buttery taste. The beer rolls into a little bit of a lemon and citrusy hop flavor, but mostly grassy hops through the main body of the beer. The beer is very smooth and gives a balanced taste throughout; no bite, simple and uncomplicated...

Mouthfeel: This is the lightest beer I've had in a loooong time. Very smooth drinking on this one with a slightly dry finish. This is such a smooth, drinkable beer, you really can't help but love it!

Overall Grade: B

Comments: This beer is so very drinkable and is close, ABV-wise, to being a solid session beer. The taste is not great, but it's good, and the mouthfeel/drinkability wins most of the points here. If you're in for a long drinking session and want a solid lager, this is where you should start your search!

Cheers,

Hurls

Aprihop - Dogfish Head Brewery

Vitals:

Name: Aprihop

Style: American IPA

IBU: 50

ABV: 7.0%

Gravity: ??

Purchased at: Riley's Wines of the World

Descriptions:

Appearance: Pours a deep garnet color, slightly brownish even (depending on the light). A finger of tan head that has decent retention, lacing, and cap. The color seems somewhat unique and the beer is translucent with little visible carbonation.

Smell: As indicated by the name, apricots and citrus hops (only slightly for the hops) are on the nose. There is a very strong malty presence in the background. Overall this smells like it will be quite balanced, and not quite as hoppy as most IPAs usually smell. I'm thinking this will be an interesting beer to drink.

Taste: I didn't think I'd ever say this about an American IPA, but this beer is slightly imbalanced in favor of malts and I actually LIKE it! The sweetness persists throughout the beer with the apricots and malts. Citrus and piney hops linger on your tongue when you're finishing up the drink. One of the biggest things about this beer is it hides the 7.0% ABV SO well. This is an extremely well-balanced solid tasting beer - I wouldn't drink it all night, but it's a refreshing take on an American IPA.

Mouthfeel: Medium-bodied, even somewhat creamy...perhaps a tiny bit heavier than the style usually is. Not much carbonation, which gives you very smooth drinking. Slightly resinous, but not too much that it'd detract from people who don't like that sort of thing.

Overall Grade: B+ (A- on inventiveness)

Comments: This is a very nice American IPA; a nice change from the normal hop bombs that largely define the style. Too bad they (Dogfish Head) don't distribute to WI anymore :-(. This is definitely worth a try if you want something different, and if you want to try an IPA that's not too hoppy!

Cheers,

Hurls

Prima Pils - Victory Brewing Company

Vitals:

Name: Prima Pils

Style: German Pilsner

IBU: ??

ABV: 5.3%

Gravity: ??

Purchased at: Trixie's Liquor

Descriptions:

Appearance: Pours a bright gold with a finger of bone-white head. Decent lacing, but low retention...leaving a nice thin cap. This beer is translucent and seems to have a relatively low level of carbonation, at least to the eye.

Smell: Mostly grassy/citrusy hops and some biscuit malt in the background. It's interesting because the hop profile is much more pronounced than most pilsners I've had, which is amazing. The malt takes a backseat and you get a nice whiff of lemon along with the hops.

Taste: You get bitterness as soon as it hits your palate. Citrus hops completely dominate the taste here, with some grassiness in there as well. The lemon flavor is mild, but not muted. The malt doesn't ever really "come through" except maybe a tiny bit up front, but you still get a pretty balanced feel here, despite the hop dominance. This hop bitterness will stick on your tongue for quite a while. Hides the higher-than-normal (for the style) ABV very well...not a big ABV number, but you can't tell it's even 5.3%, as it is very drinkable.

Mouthfeel: Light bodied and refreshing; you get a somewhat dry finish but it's not too much of a detractor at all. Overall this is a very drinkable beer that is just SLIGHTLY too high on the ABV scale to be a session beer.

Overall Grade: A

Comments: This is a reminder that the grades incorporate a consideration of the style and this is by far the best pilsner I have ever had. Those who don't love hops may not like this, but if you prefer pilsners then you need to give this a try - go pick some up...if they ship to Wisconsin from PA then you can probably score some at a local store wherever you're at!

Cheers,

Hurls

Abbey Triple - Sprecher Brewing Company

Vitals:

Name: Abbey Triple (yes they spelled it different than the style)

Style: Belgian Tripel

IBU: 13

ABV: 8.41%

Gravity: 19 deg. Plato --> 1.076 OG

Purchased at: Riley's Wines of the World

Descriptions:

Appearance: Pours a dark orange, almost a University of Texas burnt orange. ZERO head on this beer, no cap, no lace, NOTHING...so weird. Seems very lightly carbonated, translucent and hazy. To be honest, this looks quite lackluster.

Smell: Fruity (banana) and spicy (cloves) with some yeastiness. Smells good but there's not too much else here. Maybe some other fruits on the nose and there is definitely a faint alcohol smell to it. Smells good but nothing else special.

Taste: Starts with very sweet notes (maybe caramel?) and the fruity banana kick which turns over with the spicy clove and slight bite of alcohol. You get some of the good old Belgian yeast flavor, which is good. Leaves you with a sugary and boozy aftertaste; slight detractor. The middle of this beer is very strong and then fades out, but you get some alcohol heat...hides it's ABV very marginally at best.

Mouthfeel: Lighter side of a medium bodied beer and not much carbonation. Provides the interesting spice/alcohol heat which is interesting...I can't figure out if I like that or not. That feeling rolls down the back of your throat throughout the experience.

Overall Grade: B

Comments: I had this at Quivey's Grove Beerfest last year and thought it was amazing. Now, placing it in context, with more experience with different styles, I think it's still a solid beer, but not as complex as I remember it. At ~$8 for 4 pints it's not a bad deal and is a slight step up from Leffe Blond. I still prefer Bedlam from Ale Asylum or Delirium Tremens if I'm having a Belgian beer at this point. Try it if you're interested, or if you're a Belgian beer connoisseur, but you can probably find something as good or better if you try.

Cheers,

Hurls

Hop Rising - Squatter's Pub Brewery

Vitals:

Name: Hop Rising

Style: American IIPA

IBU: 75

ABV: 9.0%

Gravity: ??

Purchased at: Riley's Wines of the World

Descriptions:

Appearance: Pours a bright translucent copper color with about a finger of off-white head. Great lacing in the wake of decent retention, with a nice thin cap as well. Seems to be a small amount of carbonation that is visible after the pour.

Smell: Fruity/citrusy hops on the nose with some other citrus notes (seems to be orange and perhaps grapefruit). You get a small whiff of caramel malt as well, but the hops rule the day here; smells delicious, but not quite unique in any noticeable way...

Taste: HUGE pine note up front, which was unexpected and very tasty. The citrus hops and orange/grapefruit from the nose really build up with a strong bitterness. The experience is smooth as you start out with the hops, so you don't get a big, sharp bite, but the building bitterness is very pleasant. The malt backbone is a touch light for the style, which is fine by me, and it mostly just flirts in the background...unallowed to come through the aggressive hops. This is a very good, unique taste and I like it a good deal. Hides the ABV VERY well.

Mouthfeel: Medium bodied with much more carbonation than I expected from the appearance. Slightly astringent but it's such a smooth drink and not grating at all. Drinks very well for a big IIPA.

Overall Grade: A-

Comments: I loved this beer and would definitely drink it again. You get a nice, unique flavor that is better than many IIPAs that I've had. It's not hop-forward, it's hop-total. You get hops from the very start to the very finish of the drink, which is nirvana for me. Try it out you hop heads!

Cheers,

Hurls