Centennial IPA - Founder's Brewery

Vitals:

Name: Centennial IPA

Style: American IPA

IBU: 65

ABV: 7.2%

Gravity: ??

Purchased at: Trixie's Liquor

Descriptions:

Appearance: Pours a deep amber/ruby cool, one finger of off-white head. This brew boasts a nice retention, beautiful lacing, and a sparse cap. There is a decent amount of carbonation as well. The beer seems clear-to-mildly-translucent.

Smell: Grapefruit and citrus aromas are immediately evident along with lots of piney resins. The malt is there but totally gets overpowered by the other aromas (which I'm fine with, for an IPA). The nose on this beer is a hop head's dream...seriously tremendous smell.

Taste: Boasts a lingering piney hop flavor and bitterness. There are grapefruit and pineapple flavors that mingle nicely with the citrus hops and toasted caramel malts. The malt taste is very muted by the hops but has enough presence to hold the beer together nicely. I wouldn't exactly call this beer balanced, but it's balanced enough.

Mouthfeel: Adequate carbonation with a pretty full-bodied mouthfeel. This is a very thick and creamy IPA and generally seems to be a heavy, filling beer.

Overall Grade: B+

Comments: Very good IPA, but honestly I would go with one that isn't quite as heavy. Bell's Two-Hearted comes to mind as a good one (and Ranger IPA from New Belgium) that are great tastes and aren't quite as heavy. This is worth a try for sure if you're into IPAs...I just wouldn't recommend putting back more than one or two, because you'll be full (and possibly feeling good with the 7.2% ABV!). Get out there and try this one out if you're a hop head!

Cheers,

Hurls

Torpedo - Sierra Nevada

Vitals:

Name: Torpedo

Style: American IPA

IBU: 65

ABV: 7.2%

Gravity: 17.3 degrees Plato

Purchased at: Harris Teeter (Herndon, VA)

Descriptions:

Appearance: Pours a pretty, clear amber color with close-to-bone-white head (half finger). Minimal carbonation from the look of it, but solid lacing. The retention is quite poor with a moderate cap. Nothing particularly special here.

Smell: This beer smells very sweet with citrus hops and malt right there for you. You get some piney hops too, but the smell (in general) seems muted. Don't get me wrong, this beer smells pretty darn good, but it's just very faint and not totally impressive.

Taste: This is VERY hop-forward. You get a tiny bit of grapefruit up front, but it's mostly sweet caramel and molasses malt at the outset to counter some of the hops. Citrus and floral hops hit early and linger with piney hops as well. This beer is mouth-puckeringly bitter, with the malts barely coming through toward the end. Having said that, it hides its ABV reasonably well.

Mouthfeel: Creamy, medium bodied beer...a little heavy for an IPA but with adequate carbonation. It really coats your mouth and dries you out quite a bit; definitely makes your mouth pucker quite a bit.

Overall Grade: B+

Comments: So I would've typically graded this as a B, and the only reason I bumped it up to a B+ is that it's pretty much a macro that you can get almost anywhere. It's a solid beer with a pretty good taste...maybe a bit more bitter than most IPAs out there, but for a macro it is solid. So, in sum, based solely on the beer it'd be a B, but the fact that it's a macro (and thus available in most locations) it gets bumped to a B+.

Cheers,

Hurls

Stone IPA - Stone Brewery

So, after a HUGE delay, I am back to posting (hopefully on a regular basis). I basically was trying to finish up getting work done in the summer, then I upgraded to Mac Lion OS, which is somehow incompatible with my camera, so I put it off and put it off and finally uploaded some pics.

So, the story behind this one is my best buddy, Pat Fichtner, told me about how I needed to try this incredible IPA from Stone Brewery. The only problem...Pat lives in California and, if you haven't looked at a map recently, California is sort of out of the way from Wisconsin. Luckily for me, I was heading to California for my buddy Reid's wedding so, true to form, Reid and I pick up some brew to enjoy while we chatted and caught up late into the night (errrr...make that morning). You can't get much better than that...catching up with one of your best friends over some quality micro-brews! Enjoy and cheers!

Vitals:

Name: Stone IPA

Style: American IPA

IBU: 77

ABV: 6.9%

Gravity: ??

Purchased at: Ralph's (grocery store near Los Angeles, CA)

Descriptions:

Appearance: Pours a brilliant translucent orange with about a finger of off-white (slightly orange, actually) foamy head. OK retention, sparse lacing, but a nice cap up top. Moderate carbonation from the look of it and lots of stuff hanging in suspension in the beer.

Smell: Grapefruit, orange, peach, and citrus hops mostly. You can sense the malt poking its way through, though, so you can expect a decent malt backing. You get piney hops as well - not going to lie...this smells fantastic!

Taste: The grapefruit comes through with a nice juiciness up front with the malt sweetness. There is more of a spice when the hops kick in, as opposed to what normally seems like a hop "bite." It's a nice feel but I can't place that taste completely. There is INTENSE bitterness with this beer. You get hit with citrus hops first, but it tastes pinier as you go through the taste experience. This hides the ABV incredibly well and leaves you with a mouth-coating, lingering bitterness.

Mouthfeel: Juicy, yet crisp; not overly astringent and just the right amount of the hop oil quality to coat your mouth. This is somewhat light for an IPA; pretty drinkable but will put you on your butt if you have more than a few. 

Overall Grade: A

Comments: One of the very best IPAs that I've ever had; if you can find it, buy it hopheads! You won't regret this one.

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

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

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

Hop Wallop - Victory Brewing Company

So, this beer has the tough task of living up to the Dreadnaught from Three Floyds Brewing...NOT an easy task...let's see how it stacks up.

Vitals:

Name: Hop Wallop

Style: American IIPA

IBU: ??

ABV: 8.5%

Gravity: ??

Purchased at: Trixie's Liquor

Descriptions:

Appearance: Pours a golden copper color; 1.5 fingers of bone-white head. Decent/moderate retention and a nice cap. No noticeable carbonation from the look of it.

Smell: I barely smell any malt; mostly floral and piney hops and maybe some citrus hops as well. Smells uber hoppy, which is exciting.

Taste: Hop-forward doesn't even begin to describe this beer. The hops wash over your entire mouth and it feels like your tongue is being attacked. Mostly piney resinous flavors here. This beer has virtually no balance, which is OK for an extreme hop head like me but will punish anyone other than that.

Mouthfeel: Oily and resinous; medium body and not any carbonation. Attacks your taste buds and sticks with you long after you finish the drink. This beer completely coats your mouth.

Overall Grade: B

Comments: Does it help that this beer followed up my A+ Dreadnaught review? No. But in all honesty I feel this is a valid rating for this beer. I like this beer, but it's simply too imbalanced to warrant a higher grade. If you're not a huge hop head you will most likely hate this beer. Experiment with this brew accordingly.

Cheers,

Hurls

Dreadnaught - Three Floyds Brewing

And now for the third, and most anticipated (on my part) offering from FFF's brewing. I'm expecting a great deal out of this beer, both because of the cost $11 for 22 oz., and because of the disappointment of Rabbid Rabbit lingering on my palate. 

Vitals:

Name: Dreadnaught

Style: American IIPA

IBU: 99 (YES!)

ABV: 9.5%

Gravity: ??

Purchased at: Riley's Wines of the World

Descriptions:

Appearance: Pours a deep, dark copper color with 1.5 fingers of head. INCREDIBLE lacing with a thicky creamy white head (shut up and get your head out of the gutter). Minimal carbonation bubbles, which is odd for FFF's beers, as they are usually highly carbonated.

Smell: This smells heavenly to a hop head such as myself. Citrus hops dominate here with piney hops as well. Grapefruit and mango smells here as well; the beer also offers some sweet malty smells (caramel I think).

Taste: The caramel malt backbone is perfect throughout, not too much or too little. The Taste follows the nose with grapefruit, mango, and citrus hops rolling into a duo of earthy/piney hops to finish out the experience. You can't taste the 9.5% ABV almost at all in this incredibly hop-forward big IIPA. This is truly a hop flurry on your tongue; magnificent, but not for the faint of heart.

Mouthfeel: This beer is very crisp and even on the light side of medium body (surprisingly); low carbonation, but it's there nonetheless. It has an oily mouthfeel with a puckering bitterness. However, it's worth noting that this beer doesn't scrape your palate like a lot of big IIPAs, which is awesome.

Overall Grade: A+

Comments: This is one of my favorite beers...a true hop head's dream. It is bursting with hop flavor and doesn't disappoint at any point in the experience. Surprisingly light for an IIPA. Holy crap, I wish this were cheaper because it's fantastic. If you like hops you MUST TRY THIS BEER.

Cheers,

Hurls

Pride and Joy - Three Floyds Brewing

So, I think it's somewhat rare to find a brewery that will provide you with solid beers with each effort they make. Three Floyds definitely fits into this category. I've already reviewed Gumballhead and Robert the Bruce, and would like to get hold of some more Alpha King so I can throw that one on here as well. For now, this is the first of three successive reviews of Three Floyds Beers. Pride and Joy is a "mild ale" and, not unlike the late great Stevie Ray Vaughn's song (which shares its namesake), I am expecting great things.

Vitals:

Name: Pride and Joy

Style: American Pale Ale

IBU: 30

ABV: 5.0%

Gravity: ??

Purchased at: Riley's Wines of the World

Descriptions:

Appearance: Pours a brilliant dark orange/copper color; a finger of ever-so-slightly off-white head. Decent retention, with nice lacing and a good cap. Lots lots lots of carbonation bubbles racing up through the beer - looks delicious.

Smell: Citrus hops dominate here and mingle with orange and grapefruit. There is a sweet pale malt smell to it as well, but by far the citrus wins the day on the smell. This beer has a great smell to it IMHO.

Taste: The malt sweetness is fleeting, but delicious nonetheless. This beer is what you'd call "hop forward" meaning the hop flavor and bitter bite rolls over the sweetness earlier in the taste. You get the grapefruit with the citrus hops at the bite but the orange smell seems muted in the taste. You actually end up with a piney hop finish that lingers. Not as balanced as FFF's beers usually are but it is still solid.

Mouthfeel: Light and refreshing; highly carbonated that tickles your tongue as many FFF's beers do. Bit of a dry finish, which is a little more accentuated than usual for the style, but is still good.

Overall Grade: B+

Comments: Very good beer; definitely the best APA I've had as far as being a SESSION beer goes (see my post on Session Beers for more). I'd recommend this to anyone who likes hops; you truly cannot go wrong with any FFF's beer in my experience. Two more FFF's reviews to come in short order!

Cheers,

Hurls

Two-Hearted Ale - Bell's Brewery

So I must admit, I have had Bell's Two-Hearted before. They are home to the best beer I've ever had (I will most definitely review it in the winter because it's a seasonal). This is a very good beer and my review will reflect that.

Vitals:

Name: Two-Hearted Ale

Style: American IPA

IBU: ??

ABV: 7.0%

Gravity: 1.064 OG (translation: 16 deg. Plato)

Purchased at: left at our BBQ :-)

Descriptions:

Appearance: Pours an awesome coppery-orange color with about 2.5 fingers of head (see picture). Very translucent; head is slow to leave and leaves thick lacing and a nice bubbly white cap.

Smell: Orange and lemon give the fuitiness in the background, but the piney hops will be the superstar here. Not too much malt on the nose, and it's possible some citrus hops play in the orange/lemon bouquet. Possibly a small bit of spice, though I'm not sure what.

Taste: I don't taste any lemon really and only faint orange. The fruit is mostly grapefruit on the front end with some citrus hops. You get a nice sweet malt taste up front that rolls over very nicely with a pretty big bite and a piney tastefully bitter finish. Can barely detect the 7.0% ABV, which is nice. You basically get: grapefruit/citrus hops --> malt sweetness --> a piney resinous/bitter finish.

Mouthfeel: This beer is on the lighter side of a medium body with adequate carbonation. There is a dry finish here but it's not a big detractor. You get a thin coating in your mouth from the hops, with a slightly oily feel.

Overall Grade: A-

Comments: This is VERY drinkable for an IPA; I would think it's an APA without knowing otherwise. This is definitely a go-to beer for me, right up there with Hopalicious. The high ABV will preclude you from having a bunch of these, but this is a good one for sure. Not a complete hop bomb, but it's close. Try it out if you're a hop head!

Cheers,

Hurls

#9 - Magic Hat

Before this post I have a few small comments. 1.) I have known a good deal of people to enjoy this beer, so I figured I should give it a try. 2.) Magic Hat calls this a "not quite pale ale"...not sure what that means but it should be interesting in some way. 3.) Really Magic Hat...REALLY? Your website is MagicHat.net...a quick google search doesn't seem to indicate that magichat.com was taken...soooooo....WTF mate? Anyways...as Michael Bolton says in the Lonely Island "Jack Sparrow" video..."now back to the good part!"

Vitals:

Name: #9

Style: American Pale Ale

IBU: 20

ABV: 5.1%

Gravity: 11.8 deg. Plato

Purchased at: Trixie's Liquor BYO 6-pack

Descriptions:

Appearance: Pours a brilliant copper color with about half a finger of head. Pretty clear beer with light carbonation bubbles. The head flees the scene immediately but leaves a nice thin filmy off-white cap on the beer. Slight lacing here, but not much.

Smell: Fruity, mostly. Apricot and peaches on the nose; you get a very slight whiff of pale malt, but almost no hops whatsoever. Judging from the smell and the IBUs I expect this to be a fruitier ale than an APA; don't expect much hop bite, which is disappointing.

Taste: This tastes like someone mixed a mildly disappointing APA with a fruit beer. This is a perfect example of a beer that just doens't come together well. The peach doesn't come through; you get some apricot but it doesn't mesh well with the malt really and you get some hop bitterness at the end with virtually no good hop flavor. You get some piney notes, but not much else. The after taste is pretty awful; soapy and metallic.

Mouthfeel: Very light beer, but not a lot of carbonation. You don't get a good hop flavor like I mentioned, but you get a scraping sensation on your tongue and the feeling sticks with you.

Overall Grade: D

Comments: I was looking forward to this because I'd heard a lot of people who liked it. This beer sucks (IMHO); some beers come together so well and others just don't. It's hard to describe, but you get it in the experience of drinking it. This beer just does not come together at ALL. I would avoid this at all costs if you can help it...

Cheers,

Hurls

Hopalicious - Ale Asylum

Ah, so many good memories with Hopalicious. Regrettably it has taken me quite a while to review this one, though it is one of my very favorite Wisconsin beers. Cheers to Marc for leaving a few of these as a leftover from the movie night we hosted back in the fall - that really got me turned on to Ale Asylum in general, and Hopalicious specifically. I also distinctly remember loving the fact that Ale Asylum provided fresh cascade hops to go with your beer at Quivey's Grove, which was fantastic. I will be trying to organize a big group for Quivey's this year and it should be even better than last year! Anyways, once Sarah got me a kegerator I knew the first beer that had to go in there...now on to the good stuff...

Vitals:

Name: Hopalicious

Style: American Pale Ale

IBU: ??

ABV: 5.8%

Gravity: ??

Purchased at: where HAVEN'T I bought Hopalicious? Hmm....

Descriptions:

Appearance: Pours a delicious looking golden orange color, almost to the point of being copper. Medium carbonation is evident from the tons of little bubbles excitedly rising to the top. The head content was less than I anticipated, despite being familiar with the beer, and it wasn't for lack of a good pour. All in all there was maybe slightly less than a finger of bone-white head, which surprisingly lacked retention but left a beautiful thick lacing on the glass.

Smell: Surprisingly, given the name, the smell is somewhat understated (especially compared to a lot of Pales out there). You get floral and citrus hops on the nose and a bit of sweet malt hiding in there. There may be a little fruitiness to it (grapefruit if I had to guess, but I'm not completely confident in that) but not too much.

Taste: This beer is very well balanced - you get sweet malt up front (not too much or too little) and you get the hop bitterness that hop-heads crave on the back-end of the beer. The hops are surprisingly piney with a citrus flavor as well. What's surprising to me here is that Ale Asylum prides themselves on putting in ELEVEN (yes, you read that right, as in ten plus one) separate additions of cascade hops to the boil. I am just becoming familiar with the brewing process, as I'm looking to try it out with Marc, but basically you boil the wort (will explain this in a later post) with hops for a long time (typically an hour, but some beers such as DogFishHead 90 and 120 minute IPAs, appropriately named by the way) boil for longer. The hops immediately added (and thus boiled the longest) are for bittering purposes, so you can get a lot of the bitter resins out of the hop cones. The later additions (boiled less) provide the main aromas and flavors. So, basically, with that long (yet quite abbreviated) explanation the puzzling thing to me is that Cascade hops typically impart citrus and floral tastes and aromas, yet I'm getting a lot of piney flavor here. It makes me wonder what the tight-lipped folks over at Ale Asylum are up to with this beer that they don't advertise. My guess is something like Chinook hops added with 15-20 minutes left in the boil but this is just pure speculation, since Chinook are known for being very piney. The key here is the smoothness of the bitter finish; you really get a sweet taste up front from the malt, then a pretty bitter piney bite, and then a surprisingly smooth bitter finish to bring you through. It glides off your palate rather than getting that scraping feeling that a lot of bitter, hoppy brews can give you.

Mouthfeel: Medium body with decent carbonation. I will say that the body is more on the light side of medium, so you could drink this all day (as I can personally attest to). You get a nice thin layer of residual resin on your palate, which is just right for this type of beer. You don't want your mouth to feel completely coated and overwhelmed, but this beer leaves you at just the right place: wanting to come back for more!

Overall Grade: A-

Comments: I consider this to be a close-to-perfect beer for year-round drinking; its versatility is very nice. I think it's light enough to be able to drink in the summer and give you a hopiness if that's what you crave. However, it's also bold enough of a taste, and not completely light bodied, so you can enjoy it when the weather gets cold. Most people know of my love for Ale Asylum beers (if you have a chance check out my post on Bedlam! and try that one out too). Also, as a teaser, I have a bottle of Ambergeddon (what a great name, by the way) in the fridge, awaiting tasting and review. This beer is available practically everywhere in Madison, on tap or for sale in 6 and 12 packs. If you consider yourself a hop-head, or have any interest in hoppy beers, this is a must-have staple of your beer drinking rotation. Go out and enjoy one and see if you agree with my assessment!

Cheers,

Hurls