Double/Imperial IPA, 8% ABV
Appearance: Beer is clear amber, rich, with a nice thick head and great lacing.
Smell: Hops, hops, and more hops! Also, there's some nice tropical fruit and a hint of breadiness.
Taste: Wow! This is unusual. The dominant taste is smokey pine, and strong bitter hops. Fruit on the nose doesn't really come through in the taste at all; the flavors are all earth: grass, wood, hops. The lingering taste on the palate is something strange that I can't put a finger on at all, but it does seem a bit spoiled.
Mouthfeel: Aggressive. It feels dark and heavy due to the taste and mild-medium carbonation.
Overall: I can't say this is a very "drinkable" beer. It's very heavy-handed, even for a DIPA, which is expected to have bold flavors. The woodiness in this is just too strong and too dank. It's not balanced at all with any fruit sweetness, and the characteristic bitterness of a DIPA (unfortunately) only enhances the overwhelming "plantlike" flavors in the beer. As I finished it, the aftertaste was increasingly unpleasant. Truthfully, as I was drinking it, I was wondering if my bottle had spoiled, so I went to BeerAdvocate to see what other reviewers had said about the beer, and as it turned out, my experience was pretty typical. It has a C over at BA, which is technically passing, but for me, I think it's a fail. I love IPAs too much to give this poorly balanced stinky wood-bomb a pass. It gets points for having flavor and not tasting like American macro-brewed pisswater, but that's about it.
1/5
Appearance: Beer is clear amber, rich, with a nice thick head and great lacing.
Smell: Hops, hops, and more hops! Also, there's some nice tropical fruit and a hint of breadiness.
Taste: Wow! This is unusual. The dominant taste is smokey pine, and strong bitter hops. Fruit on the nose doesn't really come through in the taste at all; the flavors are all earth: grass, wood, hops. The lingering taste on the palate is something strange that I can't put a finger on at all, but it does seem a bit spoiled.
Mouthfeel: Aggressive. It feels dark and heavy due to the taste and mild-medium carbonation.
Overall: I can't say this is a very "drinkable" beer. It's very heavy-handed, even for a DIPA, which is expected to have bold flavors. The woodiness in this is just too strong and too dank. It's not balanced at all with any fruit sweetness, and the characteristic bitterness of a DIPA (unfortunately) only enhances the overwhelming "plantlike" flavors in the beer. As I finished it, the aftertaste was increasingly unpleasant. Truthfully, as I was drinking it, I was wondering if my bottle had spoiled, so I went to BeerAdvocate to see what other reviewers had said about the beer, and as it turned out, my experience was pretty typical. It has a C over at BA, which is technically passing, but for me, I think it's a fail. I love IPAs too much to give this poorly balanced stinky wood-bomb a pass. It gets points for having flavor and not tasting like American macro-brewed pisswater, but that's about it.
1/5
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