American Double / Imperial IPA

Fegley’s Brew Works – Hop’solutely

As Rodney Dangerfield would say, this beer gets no respect. It’s rated something in the mid 80s on Beer Advocate (and conversely it gets some ridiculous 96 on Rate Beer). This falls someone in the 89-91 range for me.

This was the first big DIPA I ever had so there’s definitely some nostalgia mixed in there with the rating. This was a time when I was just coming off my Russian Imperial Stout obsession so this was a huge change in pace. Ton of sweetness (honey), pine, maybe some grapefruit. Caramel as it first hits your tongue that fades into bitterness and a little hint of the 11.5% ABV in the end.

Overall a very good DIPA from a brewery that’s well worth the stop if you’re passing through that part of Pennsylvania (which we were when we went to go visit/pick up Kuma). I still have a couple of bottles from that trip that I’ve been waiting to crack open: An Insidious, and a Bourbon Barrel-Aged Insidious. (These are other beers that have wack-job ratings between BA & RateBeer. 82-84 at BA and 96-98 on RB. C’mooonnn.)

I’m taking the rest of the weekend off. Happy Memorial Day, folks!

Long Trail Brewing Company – Double IPA (Brewmaster Series)

What is this, double IPA week or what? Might as well end the week with a couple of more of my favorite DIPAs. The first one comes from Long Trail’s Brewmasters Series, which are definitely the cream of the crop for the brewery. This one recently went year-round which I’m totally A-OK with.

This is an extremely well-balanced IPA. No gimmicks here, just some slight maltyness, some slight citrusy, floral hops and a nice bitter finish. This isn’t an IPA that stands out above the rest, but it’s still a very good IPA that’s a steal for the $4-5 bottle price that goes down very easy for it’s 8.6% ABV. The perfect beer for summer.

Three Floyds Brewing Co. – Dreadnaught IPA [#Beertography]

We reviewed this beer back on Super Bowl Sunday on Jay’s Beer Review so I’m not going to go into a full review or anything. It was no less than fucking fantastic. This is one of those beers that I’m on the fence about and I go back and forth between this and Heady Topper being my all time fave DIPA. I just can’t make a decision and it usually comes down to whatever I’m drinking that day.

HT has this tidal wave of hops but without so much bitter found in a lot of DIPAs because there’s also a ton of grapefruit and orange juice flavor to it. Dreadnaught comes back with almost as much hops with a bunch of mango flavor but has this extremely well-balance malty back-end that Heady Topper just can’t match.

I think I’ll just have to suffer through it and just keep drinking both.

The Alchemist – Heady Topper

Booooo. This was my last Heady Topper for a while, as I promised merc7186 my last two cans and I have no idea when I can make the trek to grab more. I’ve been doing a pretty good job about having the fridge stocked with a continuous stream of HT since October so it will definitely be missed. But we all know that Heady Topper is worth the 6 hour round trip to Waterbury, VT that I’ve done on multiple occasions so I don’t think the wait will be too long. Who knows, the last couple of four-packs were picked up from the considerably closer Manchester Discount Beverage, so if they still have some a trip there might be necessary before Memorial Day Weekend camping. We’ll see. :)