Tag Archives: double ipa

4 - Good (buy), American Double IPA, Beer Reviews, Clown Shoes Beer, USA

Clown Shoes Galactica

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Brewery: Clown Shoes Beer
Country: USA
ABV: 8%
Style: American Double IPA
Other Notes: Brewed and bottled by Mercury Brewing Co., Ipswich, MA.

Brewer Description: (from bottle) Galactica, a hop staff wielding heroine patrols in karate kick mode through the heavens. Her mission: cosmic combat to promote good beer. Dry hopped with galaxy hops, a clean malt backbone enhances the dank and luscious IPA flavors.

My rating: 4
My beeradvocate.com rating: 3.96
My ratebeer.com rating: 3.9

Intro: A 12 fl oz bottle poured into a Spiegelau IPA glass. Strangely no bottled on date considering all my other Clown Shoes beer show it on the neck.
Appearance: The beer poured a hazy dark orangey amber colour with a slightly more than one finger off-white head that leaves stringy lacing.
Aroma: Tropical fruits dominate especially peach and apricot with hints of mango, some citrus grapefruit and light caramel malts.
Taste: A backbone of nice light caramel malts, followed by floral and citrus hops, mainly grapefruit and pine but there’s also tropical hints with peach, apricot and mango. Finishes with a nice lasting bitterness.
Mouthfeel: Creamy, full bodied with light carbonation.
Overall: This was nice, as it wasn’t overly caramel-ly. A nicely balanced Double IPA.

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4 - Good (buy), American Double IPA, Beer Reviews, Sierra Nevada Brewing Company, USA

Sierra Nevada Hoptimum

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Brewery: Sierra Nevada Brewing Company
Country: USA
ABV: 10.4%
Style: American Double IPA
Other Notes: 100 IBUs, yeast (Ale yeast), hops (German Magnum, Chinook, Simcoe, plus an experimental variety), malts (Two-row Pale, Munich, Wheat)

Brewer Description: (from bottle) Hoptimum is the biggest whole-cone IPA we have ever produced – a 100 IBU, whole-cone hurricane of flavor. Aggressively hopped, dry hopped AND torpedoed, Hoptimum delivers ultra-intense flavors to hop fanatics everywhere.

My rating: 4
My beeradvocate.com rating: 3.93
My ratebeer.com rating: 3.9

Intro: A 12 fl oz bottle packaged on 10th April 2015 and poured into a Duvel tulip glass.
Appearance: Poured a clear copper colour with a one and a half finger white head that slowly dissipates into a thin foamy layer that lasts throughout.
Aroma: Strong piney hops and a light citrus grapefruit aroma. There is also some caramel malts.
Taste: Mainly pine hops and grapefruit citrus flavours along with some slight caramel malt which is sweet and sticky. There is also some alcoholic booze aftertaste.
Mouthfeel: Full bodied, medium carbonation, creamy and sticky.
Overall: I really liked this beer and its hoppiness. It’s very close to a must buy for me. I think the two things that hold it back for me are that the caramelly flavours make it a bit too sweet and the booziness that comes through towards the end is stronger than I would have liked it. But having said that, I would buy more from time to time.

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4 - Good (buy), American Double IPA, Beer Reviews, Omnipollo, Sweden

Omnipollo Nebuchadnezzar

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Brewery: Omnipollo
Country: Sweden
ABV: 8.5%
Style: Double IPA
Other Notes: Brewed by Omnipollo at De Proef Brouwerij (Belgium)

Brewer Description: (from website) “Neb” is a home brew recipe that has been scaled up with no consideration to economies of scale. Some say idiotic, and as an economist I would have to agree. Get fresh or die trying.

My rating: 4
My beeradvocate.com rating: 4.42
My ratebeer.com rating: 4.4

Intro: This was an 11.2 fl oz bottle dated best before 7th August 2016 on the bottle cap and poured into a snifter glass.
Appearance: It poured a hazy golden orange colour with a one finger white head that dissipated fairly quickly leaving nice spotty lacing.
Aroma: Right from the pour you get a strong tropical fruit aroma. Mainly mango and pineapple followed by some citrus grapefruit, zest and pine. I thought the smells were amazing and raring to burst out at me.
Taste: Citrus hop bitterness up front of grapefruit and mandarin orange followed by some light tropical fruit… maybe pineapple and peach, but still the bitterness pushes through. There’s also a strong malt caramel background and slight sweetness from this, but it gets covered by the bitterness quickly and the lasting aftertaste is bitter with a small hint of tropical fruit.
Mouthfeel: Medium bodied with light carbonation and dry finish.
Overall: This was a very nice DIPA. The strong aromas set a high standard to begin with. I find most DIPAs have too much malt caramel sweetness in its taste for me, but in this case I absolutely loved the hop bitterness shining through. The slight fruitiness also helped here. Its on the expensive side, but I will definitely consider buying this again.

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3 - Indifferent (might buy, probably drink), American Double IPA, Beer Reviews, Three Floyds Brewing Co., USA

Three Floyds Cimmerian Sabertooth Berzerker

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Brewery: Three Floyds Brewing Co.
Country: USA
ABV: 9%
Style: Double IPA
Other Notes: IBU 100

Brewer Description: (from website) In the seemingly endless cruelty, battle and strife of the Hyborian Age, a warrior has but two pleasures: decimating one’s enemies in battle, and a horn of Cimmerian Sabertooth Berzerker to slake the thirst of victory.

My rating: 3
My beeradvocate.com rating: 3.49
My ratebeer.com rating: 3.4

Intro: Excited to see this on tap at Mikkeller Bangkok.
Appearance: Served in a pint glass a hazy copper orange colour with an off white one finger bubbly head.
Aroma: Strong aromas of citrus grapefruit, lemon peel and pine with some caramel in the background.
Taste: Much like the smell, the immediate taste is bitter hoppy grapefruit and caramel malts. There is some aftertaste of piney hops and spice.
Mouthfeel: Medium to full bodied, with good carbonation.
Overall: Maybe my expectations were too high to begin with, but this was only ok for me. I enjoyed the grapefruit and pine hoppyness but perhaps a bit too much caramel malt sweetness.

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1 - Poor (never again), American Double IPA, Beer Reviews, Evil Twin Brewing, USA

Evil Twin Molotov Cocktail

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Brewery: Evil Twin Brewing
Country: USA
ABV: 13%
Style: Double IPA
Other Notes: Brewed at Two Roads Brewing Company, Stratford, CT, USA for Evil Twin

Brewer Description: (from bottle) Did you like Before, During and after Christmas, maybe you thought it poured brilliantly, the alcohol was admirable will hidden and you loved how the arrogant amounts of hops numbed your mouth. This beer will knock your tongue off – it’s a tour de force in hoppiness and by far one of the craziest beer ever made by Evil Twin Brewing.

My rating: 1
My beeradvocate.com rating: 2.43
My ratebeer.com rating: 2.3

Intro: Poured from a 12oz bottle into La Chouffe tulip glass. 169:14 is printed at the bottom of the neck of the bottle so I assume that bottle date is the 169th date of 2014 which happens to be 18 June 2014.
Appearance: It poured a nice orangey gold colour with less than one finger head which receded quite quickly leaving some lace on the glass.
Aroma: Sweet malts with some light citrus and orange coming through.
Taste: Sweet. Too sweet. Like lightly carbonated orange cordial, some honey and maybe bubblegum. One thing going for it is that even at 13%, you don’t notice the alcohol at all. Some of the hoppiness does creep through the sweetness at times but not much.
Mouthfeel: Sticky, full bodied, light carbonation.
Overall: Now around 9 months from date of bottling, maybe some hoppiness was lost? But this was way too overly sweet for me. At first I thought that maybe I could enjoy half a bottle every so often, but the more and longer I think about it, I really couldn’t. Way too sweet.

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