Seeing as how the last beer I had was something sort of special that you can't get in the Midwest....or many other places for that matter, I figured I'd taste something that you can see at a high percentage of decent liquor stores/beer shops in the MW.
That being said, this isn't some POS beer that I just had lying around. This beer is up there as far as favorites are concerned, and certainly one of my top 5 or so pale ales/IPAs. It is a bit weird though, this beer has the kind of the Kenny G distinction, where it's super highly rated by most rating services (#81 overall on Beer Advocate, and #22 Double IPA on RateBeer), yet I run into a lot of fellow beer nerds, including the lame "hop heads" that for whatever reason won't own up to actually liking the beer. I don't get it.
Oh well, here goes:
This one is a 12oz bottle poured into a simple pint glass. Most of the time you see this, it comes in 22oz bombers, but you can occasionally see 4 packs of 12 ouncers. A 22oz guy will probably run you about 4.5-5 bucks. The bottle's label is different, so that's good, but it is a touch lame with the old hot rod on the front. It calls the beer a "specialty ale", and let's me know that it's 8% abv. Not a huge amount of booze, but most likely enough to notice the malt.
An easy pour gives me a 2 finger light-tan head in my KU Alumni pint glass. The head lasts for a reasonable amount of time and leaves a pretty think soapiness on top. Great, sticky lacing clings to the side. The smell is equal amount hops and malt, with a touch of alcohol. Hops are very typical, with a little grapefruit and just a little pine, nothing over the top. Malt is doughy, crackery, and the rye malt comes in with just a little spice. None of the characteristics seem too overwhelming. The smell allows you to believe that this is a well balanced beer.
This one has been sitting out for a bit, so it's not too cold, which I think this would be nice to allow the rye (malt) to come through. This is by all means a "heavy" beer. Big and chewy....yum. You know, it's actually hard to get a true separation of the flavors here......and distinct flavors is something I usually like, but for some reason in this one, it works. The sweetness of the malt barely sneaks in first, coats the tongue a touch, then you get a nice piney-citrus rind hop, followed by a really good touch of spice from the rye that hits you right as the hop bitterness does the same. The bitterness remains a touch after the spicy rye but it's never overpowering. If there was one word describing this brew, it would be "balance". This is possibly the epitome of the word.
This is just simply a top-notch crafted beer. As I've said many times I don't go nuts over hops, but I do like them when they are not the main show of a beer. This beer is certainly equal part hops and equal part malt (with 18% rye malt, according to the bottle), and they compliment each other very nicely. Never once in the beer does one characteristic dominate the other, and where the hops would leave their mark with an overly bitter finish, the rye comes in and finishes with a good dry spice instead of overwhelming bitterness.
At the end of the day, this isn't beer-gasm-esque as far as flavor is concerned.....although it has a phenomenal taste. This beer has top notch flavor, with top notch balance, which gives it a top notch drinkability for something with a ton of malt, hops and 8% alcohol. For that reason I am giving it an uber-high rating. For you hop-head d-bags out there that want nothing more than mouth puckering grapefruit and razor sharp pine bitterness............eat it. This is a bad as beer, and all the haters can eat a big one.
Verdict: 9/10
Suck it.
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