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

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

Dankenstein IPA - Pearl Street Brewery

Once again, LOVE the name of this beer...just hilarious. This has me thinking there will be some extreme dank hops in this beer, which should provide a very new and interesting experience. I am stoked to try this out and this would represent the sixth and final beer in my BYO 6-pack from the Old Fashioned Craft Beer Week event.

Vitals:

Name: Dankenstein IPA

Style: American Double / Imperial IPA

IBU: ??

ABV: 9.5%

Gravity: ??

Purchased at: The Old Fashioned (BYO 6-Pack)

Descriptions:

Appearance: Ummmm...WTF Mate? This beer is, as you can see in the picture, DARK DARK brown to the point where I'd probably mistake it for a chocolate stout if it had any head on it. The look of it seems to fit the name Dankenstein, but not the style (IIPA) as much. Very hazy with nearly zero head on the beer and minimal, if any, carbonation. I can, without a doubt, say that this is the most surprising I have been when I have poured a beer out and been utterly shocked at how it looked based on my prior expectations.

Smell: MALTS ABOUND! I have never smelled a maltier IIPA in my somewhat limited experience of drinking this type of beer. A little piney hop smell sticks its head in there, but caramelized malts and burnt sugars far outweigh any floral, piney, or other hop smells. There may be a slightly grassy hop smell, but again...this is not what I expected PRIOR to the pour. After I poured it and saw that it seemed to basically be a brown ale I am not surprised at the results from the sniff test.

Taste: So we all know smell is connected to taste. Very evident here. Caramel malts hit your tongue early and often here. The beer tastes (I would say surprising here, but the 9.5% ABV should clue you in) unsurprisingly boozy (i.e. it does nearly nothing to hide its alcohol content). Almost no hop flavor comes through for me, which is still surprising, despite the malty smells. The beer also seems a bit bready and somewhat nutty. NO HOP FLAVOR...UGH!

Mouthfeel: This beer is very thick and creamy. Pearl Street Brewery doesn't release any gravity figures on this beer, but I don't doubt it could be north of 20 deg. Plato. This is a VERY heavy beer, well suited for a brown ale or stout/porter lover. Not for me, but the mouthfeel completely matches the appearance.

Overall Grade: B

Comments: I would've graded this sucker lower based on expectations but I'm trying to be objective here. If you are expecting a big hoppy IIPA (a la Double Dog from Flying Dog Brewery) you will sorely disappointed and I would grade this a D- in that case. However, if you like nutty brown ales, porters, stouts, etc. then you wouldn't be disappointed with this beer. Don't go near it if you're expecting to be wow'd by hops, but if you like the types of beer listed above, give it a shot and I don't think you'll regret it.

Cheers,

Hurls

IIPA - New Glarus

NOTE: due to a posting snafu this ended up being the 2nd post, but I submitted it earlier and the blog site screwed up. Oops

This is the first entry in the first blog I've taken seriously so I'm not exactly sure how to get going on this type of thing.

The first beer I am going to review is a Double IPA (IIPA) from New Glarus' "Thumbprint" Series. Beer stats are as follows:

Name: IIPA (creative, eh?)

Style: Double IPA / IIPA

IBU: 85

ABV: 9%

Gravity: 19.2 Plato --> ~1.080 original gravity

Purchased at: Riley's Wines of the World as part of a create your own 6 pack.

Availability: Not only is this a seasonal brew, but it's a special release from New Glarus, so get it while you can.

It occurred to me while typing the above stats that it may make sense to define some of the abbreviations used above.**

IBU - International Bittering Units, representing the most accepted method of measuring and expressing hop bitterness in beer. Beers will typically range from 5 IBU to 100 IBU. The human threshold is approximately 6 IBU and 6 IBU also represents the required change for a human to discriminate between levels of hoppiness.

ABV - alcohol by volume - if you went to college you don't need me to tell you this...

Gravity - gravity is an approximate measure of the amount of alcohol that may end up in a finished beer. Expressing this in terms of "Plato" is a European and American scaling which is based on a percentage of pure sugar cane in the wort. For instance, a 10 or 12 degree Plato beer would have original gravities of 1.040 and 1.049 respectively...meaning they are 4% and 4.9% heavier than pure water.

The descriptions:

In pouring the beer into my glass, I was quite surprised that it didn't have more head on it (insert perverted joke here). However, I looked into a beer book I have to see if I was pouring it correctly (I had the glass tilted and was giving it a slow pour). Turns out I was not - the book prescribes "boldly pouring down the center" (so I guess those old Bud Light commercials with the Asian guy whacking that dude with a reed and telling him to "Pour down center to release aROma and carbonation" were actually more than just annoyingly funny b.s. commercials). At any rate, I am obviously a newbie at this, so we will let my poor pour (ha ha, get it?) slide this time.

The beer came out a brilliant, a hazy deep gold or pale amber color. It doesn't help that I wasn't able to use natural light, but in my experience beer drinking is much more acceptable after the light of day has faded.

I know I will love this beer just from the smell - a completely hoppy/piney aroma accompanies this beer and it completely makes my mouth water. Pale ales are my weakness.

This beer is a pretty solid IIPA - I would honestly expect nothing less from the fine folks at New Glarus...they truly know how to make beer and if you are ever in Wisconsin you need to get some (they don't sell anywhere outside of the state). The beer gets a huge hoppy flavor without too much bitterness (relatively speaking, less than I originally expected). At 85 IBUs, it doesn't necessarily feel that way to me, not completely hitting me over the head from the onset, or even a lingering bitter flavor. It's a dry mouth feel, especially at the finish of the sip. The beer smells a bit sweeter than it actually is, as I have taken a few more whiffs and sips. Again, I am still learning how to do this stuff, so perhaps take what I say with a grain of salt.

I am thinking that they used a light biscuit malt in this beer, similar to a Hopslam (from Bell's Brewery in Kalamazoo, MI). It's also somewhat fruity, maybe orange or grapefruit? It adds a nice kick to the beer.

Overall Grade: A-

Comments: Try this out if you can and if you like really hoppy and pretty bitter beers. It is limited so you need to move quick - another great brew by New Glarus!!

Cheers,

Hurls

** Definitions quoted from Tasting Beer: An Insider's Guide to the World's Greatest Drink by Randy Mosher