2nd Shift Art of Neurosis IPA

Sorry it’s been a fews days since I’ve posted. I’ve had a couple of beers but away from the computer so I took notes to post later.

This one isn’t from Lidney, but from another friend Russ who came into town for the Medieval Congress a couple of weeks back. I opened it up to drink while I was washing dishes and making dinner. As such, I don’t have detailed notes.

Overall thoughts? Crazy drinkable, highly grapefruit-rindy, and with a ton of citrus character. At 7.5% I wouldn’t expect any booze and there is none. Drinks easy and finishes clean. A superior IPA.

I gave a few sips to a non-beer-drinking friend and he enjoyed it despite “not liking beer.” Max, I’ll get you into IPAs yet.

No rating since I wasn’t really paying close attention to this one. Somewhere in the B range most likely.

Deschutes Fresh Squeezed IPA

Another day, another IPA?

This is a beer from Deschutes I haven’t had, and another one from Lidney. It’s dated best by 8/5/14, so I’m hoping that means bottled May 5.

The bottle says it uses Citra and Mosaic hops. No further ado, let’s dig in.

Pour transparent orange, thick frothy white head that dissipates with time. Leaves significant soapscummy lacing. Aroma strong with orange and grapefruit. Significant sweetness from the hops, slight bready malt base.

Flavor follows the nose. Hints of bready malt, but overall a big wallop of orange/citrus/grapefruit astringency. Very long finish, mostly grapefruit/tangerine.

This is one of those beers that’s more satisfying to drink than to talk about. I’d love to sit down with a growler or a sixer of this and really dig into it. It’s delicious, but maybe a bit one-note?

Rating: A-

Urban Chestnut SLIPA Double IPA

This one’s not from Lidney, but from a pair of friends who recently came into town from Missouri. Since I got a couple of giant boxes of beer, I figured I might as well just review them all.

The bottle tells me this is a “St. Louis India Pale Ale.” Presumably that doesn’t mean that it’s like Shock Top Wheat IPA. snicker

Pours straw yellow-orange into a nonic pint. Fluffy head leaves significant lacing. Smells lightly of orange, pine, some grapefruit. Slight oxidation? Hard to say.

Tastes smooth, generically “fruity,” with hints of pine and grapefruit. Slight metallic bitterness on the back of the palate. Goes down clean but leaves a bit of an aftertaste.

Not much to say on this one. The bitter aftertaste starts to catch up with me after awhile without some malt backbone or hop flavor to balance it out. Decent, but nothing great.

Rating: B-

Southern Star Valkyrie Double IPA

Another beer sent to me by Lidney (I think — I’ve gotten a lot of new beers lately from a couple of people). This one’s a canned DIPA from Texas.

Pours dingy orange, about half opaque. Lots of bready malt character on the nose, not a lot of prominent hops. Some bitterness for sure. Slightly metallic.

Flavor: Wow, very very smooth. More like a 9.2% pale ale than IPA. Nice biscuity malt, a hint of hop bite but very little hop character. Perhaps an old can? No date code that I can see. With the excess of caramel malt this is like a super-smooth barleywine or super-ESB than a DIPA.

The bitterness definitely starts to creep up on me as I get through the can. Metallic character starts to dominate the aftertaste. (Not from the can, of course, but from the extended aftereffects of the hops.) It’s not exactly a DIPA, but it’s not exactly bad, either.

I’m not sure how to rate this one. As a DIPA it’s substandard. It reminds me of either an old can that hasn’t been in great condition, or a early-draft homebrew recipe. I’d love to try it again and see if this can is just off, or if this is what it’s supposed to be.

Even though I don’t love this one, thanks a lot for the can, Lidney. I always like to try interesting new stuff.

Video Review: Green Flash Le Freak

I don’t have much to say that isn’t in the video, so just watch and enjoy.

I’m planning on doing a viewer/reader response video for next Friday, so if you’ve got questions/comments you want me to respond to, place them somewhere I can see them in the next few days.

Nightly Beers 2013-08-23

In an attempt to create content for the blog, I’m going to start doing brief rundowns of the beers I drink when I open new, cool stuff.

Got off from work around 11:15, started re-heating leftover pasta sauce for dinner. Cracked the brand new Stone 17th Anniversary Gotterdammerung IPA, all German malts and hops. Slightly darker than straw yellow color, more of a light orange/brown with a thin head. Aroma and flavor are all earthy spice, as expected from an all-German hopped beer. I wish it had a bit more body to back up the hops and to accentuate it’s “German-ness,” but ultimately Stone made the beer they want to make.

Stone 17th Anniversary Gotterdamerung IPA

Nine percent ABV. Lots of hops. Late night. I think that’s it for me (especially after a large and very late dinner). Cheers.

Is the Hop Harvest Better This Year Than Last? — Founders Harvest Ale 2011

There must have been an issue with the hop harvests last year, at least in the midwest. Nearly all of the fresh-hop beers that I saw reviews of last year seemed a little lackluster and bland. While I ended up giving the 2010 Founders Harvest Ale a B+ overall, I definitely didn’t think it was all it could be.

I don’t want to bother shooting another review for this one, but I wanted to give the 2011 a shake.

Even just starting the pour I can smell the nice fresh resiny hops. Beautiful floral notes, some nice pine background. Almost like a Christmas tree. I’m more attuned to hops than I was last year, but I suspect it’s definitely a more pungent hop aroma.

Ditto for the flavor. A bit more earthy, but with those definite pine and floral resins. Slight golden malt backbone provides just a tiny bit of sweetness, but this beer is definitely a showcase for hops. At 6.5% it’s not quite as big as a traditional IPA, nor is it quite as heavily bittered, but drinking this beer less than two weeks after bottling (bottling date: 09/22/2011) definitely fulfills my hop quota.

If the 2010 bottling was a B+, this is an A-, maybe even an A. Ridiculously drinkable as well. Drink it fresh or don’t drink it at all.

Beyond the Pour grade: A-

Is Lagunitas the Offspring of Craft Beer? — Lagunitas Lucky 13.alt

How grapefruity can an IPA get?

The only difference between this bottle and the regular? The color of her hair.

Okay, so BeerAdvocate calls this an American Strong Ale instead of an Imperial IPA, but that’s just pedantic at this point. I’d believe that the slightly darker “regular” Lucky 13 is an American Strong Ale, as it’s just a big hoppy imperial amber, one of a whole slew of big hoppy ambers made by Lagunitas. This one, lighter in color to the point of being bright orange, is clearly “just” an Imperial IPA.

So whatever. Let’s review it as such.

Pours very transparent, light orange, with a steady stream of carbonation from the bottom of the glass. Thick billowy white head. Smells very strongly of grapefruit. Lots of malt sweetness and a bit of alcohol on top of that.

Flavor is more alcoholic than expected, with a significant “burn” on the way down. Nice grapefruity hops give sweetness and a nice abrasive bitter “bite” on the tip of the tongue.

Here’s my thing with Lagunitas — their beers almost always taste really good, but they’re very samey and one note. Which was always my issue with the nineties alternapop band Offspring — once you’ve heard “Self Esteem” you’ve basically heard everything through “Pretty Fly For a White Guy” and beyond. (Which, yeah, shows how old and out of touch I am when I’m making Offspring references when reviewing beer.) Lagunitas’s beers are good, but ultimately I just can’t work myself up to any real passion for them. The price is right, though — this bomber cost me less than five bucks.

The alcohol is a bit overwhelming on this one, which knocks it down half a letter grade or so.

Beyond the Pour grade: B

Good People IPA (Video)

The second beer from Alabama I picked up at Liquor Express in Huntsville. This is also from Good People, whose DIPA I reviewed previously. This one is more sessionable at 6%. It’s not a world-class IPA but it’s solid and serviceable and my rating is perhaps a tad low.

Plus, check out that can! It just screams “Alabama IPA” to me. If Wal-Mart had a house brand IPA, that’s the kind of can they’d use.

Beyond the Pour grade: B-

Olde Hickory Black Raven Black IPA (Video)

The first beer sent to me in trade with Tommy. The rest will be coming shortly.

This video is a bit longer than usual because I’ve had and reviewed several Black IPAs in the last couple of weeks, and I spend some time musing about the style. Is it really all that new? Will it stick around, or is it just a fad? I’d be interested in getting comments on those kinds of issues, and may make a more involved video on the topic down the road.

Beyond the Pour grade: B+