REVIEW: Stone 17th Anniversary Götterdämmerung IPA

I've been excited to try this beer ever since it was announced. You guys all know I'm a bit of a hop head. I love them all, east coast, west coast, English style, Belgian style, dry hopped, wet hopped, black IPAs, white IPAs, wheat IPAs, double IPAs, triple IPAs, barrel aged IPAs, even coffee IPAs, but never in my entire life have I had a German style IPA. As we all know the IPA originates out of English brewing tradition. It has become widely accepted by American brewers and has become one of the most popular beer styles in the world. But leave it to those devious bastards at Stone to take the IPA in a direction heretofore unknown to me. A beer brewed entirely with German pilsner malt and a host of German hops that checks in at 9.5% ABV and a beastly 102 IBUs. I can't wait. To the beer!

REVIEW: Stone RuinTen

So, I've got a couple more north east beers from Trey to get to, but I accidentally left those notes in Lexington, I'm a mess, I know. But I've got plenty of beers to talk about so we're all good. The beer we're looking at today is a new Imperial IPA from Stone, Ruinten. Well, I guess it's not really a new beer at all. This beer was initially released last summer as Ruination Tenth Anniversary IPA. It was so well recieved that the're bringing it back now as simply, RuinTen. I'm pretty pumped because I missed out on the Ruination Tenth Anniversary IPA the first time around. I took a look at the original Ruination last summer and liked it quite a bit. Stone bills that one as, "A liquid poem to the glory of the hop." Ruinten however, they call "A stage dive into a mosh pit of hops" I think I like where this is headed. To the beer!

REVIEW: Avery Twenty

In the year and change since I've been doing this blog I've had the chance to try three of Avery's anniversary beers. First Eighteen, a rye saison, and Nineteen, a Belgian style tripel. This year is a pretty big year for Avery. Although, for a brewery, is the twentieth anniversary the big one, or do they hold off on the huge celebrations for the twenty first anniversary? Hmm. Well, whatever the case may be, twenty years of brewing excellent beer is an accomplishment to be applauded. So, I raise this glass full of dry-hopped imperial IPA to the folks at Avery. To the beer!

REVIEW: Oskar Blues Gubna

Alright. Back to talkin' 'bout beer. One of the few thing in this world I actually feel completely comfortable and qualified doing. Well that, and talking about video games and comics and movies and baseball and other such nonsense. There's a marketable set of skills if I've ever seen one! Today we're looking at Gubna, a 10% ABV 100+ IBU monster of an imperial IPA. It's been a while since I looked at an Oskar Blues beer. Not since I did a week of them back when they first were starting to distribute to Ohio. But enough time has passed. To the beer!

REVIEW: Founders Double Trouble

Every so often, I need to get back to my craft beer drinking roots. For me, those roots are an outlandishly big imperial IPA. Now, the big imperial IPA doesn't hold quite the sway over me that it once did. I've only looked at two in the last couple of months. I still love them, but my tastes have changed in the year and a half or so that I've been talking about beer on this blog. I've come to appreciate a subtle hand and a more delicate flavor profile. But there are still times when I want something big and bold. Enter today's 86 IBU, 9.4% ABV beast. Double Trouble from the always excellent Founders Brewing. To the beer!

REVIEW: Heavy Seas the Big DIPA

I've taken a look at a lot of Heavy Seas beer in my time on the blog, but not any of their limited releases. Not sure why. I'm a fan of what they do, but their limited release beers have never really jumped off the shelves. Well, it ends today. What we have here is a 10.5% imperial IPA aged on oak spirals. I'm game. To the beer!

REVIEW: Dogfish Head/ Sierra Nevada Rhizing Bines

Today's beer is a collaboration between two giants of the craft beer world. From the west coast, Sierra Nevada, and the east, Dogfish Head. It's a collaboration in style, technique and ingredients. Rhizing Bines has been brewed with Carolina red fife wheat, Sierra Nevada's estate grown caramel malt as well as Bravo hops and a new experimental hop known only as Hop 664. It was brewed using Dogfish's continual hopping process used in the 60, 90, and 120 Minute IPAs and dry hopped using Sierra Nevada's torpedo system. Checks in at 8% ABV and 70 IBUs. To the beer!

REVIEW: Bell's Hopslam

So we finally get to Hopslam. A bit of a holy grail for some beer geeks. If I'm being honest though, a bottle of Hopslam isn't really that hard to find. If you're on the ball, you can come across some fairly easily. I just walked into Krogers and walked out with a six pack. It's not like this beer is Dark Lord or Canadian Breakfast Stout or anything. But there certainly is a fair amount of hype swirling around this beer's release each year. Is that hype for hype's sake though, or is it warranted? Only one way to find out. To the beer!

REVIEW: Uinta Dubhe

Today I'm wrapping up my week of Uinta beers. Thus far, I've been quite impressed. Both with the fruity and excellent Hop Notch IPA and the subtle and sessionable Baba black lager. Today I'm taking a look at Dubhe, an imperial black IPA brewed with hemp seeds. I'll be honest with you, I have no idea what hemp seeds taste like. I have no idea what they'll do to the flavor of the beer. But a 9.2% ABV Imperial Black IPA, that sounds up my alley. To the beer!

REVIEW: Blank Slate/ Triple Digit Determination

Today's beer is one that I've been looking forward to. For a number of reasons, really. For one, it's our first real look at a couple of Cincinnati breweries (Both were mentioned in my post on the Cincinnati Craft Beer Oktoberfest. Check that out here.) Blank Slate Brewing, and Triple Digit. Another reason I'm excited is because this is the first offering from Blank Slate that I've been able to get my grubby little hands on in bottle. Now if you've been hanging out at better beer bars in Cincinnati over the past few months you've probably seen some of Blank Slate's beers on tap. In my day job as a bartender I've had the extreme pleasure of trying all of them and of meeting the man behind the beers, Scott LaFollette (Super nice guy by the way). This is all a long way of saying that I've been dying to get a beer from my new favorite Cincinnati brewery up on the blog, and now I finally can. Enough of my rambling, Determination is a 9%ABV double Belgian style IPA. To the beer!

REVIEW: Oskar Blues G'Knight

Well it's Friday, and that brings us to the end of this little week of Oskar Blues I've cooked up here. Don't worry, there will certainly be more. Mama's Little Yella Pils and Old Chub were both hits, hopefully today's makes it a clean sweep. The beer today is G'Knight an Imperial red ale. I'm thinking this beer will be very similar in style to the Hop Head Red from Green Flash that I looked at a while ago. Apropos of nothing, I've been talking about Oskar Blues' beers all week and I just now noticed the ColoRADo at the bottom of the can. Love that. There's also a very cool story behind this beer. It's named after Gordon Knight, a brewer and Vietnam veteran, and firefighter who passed away when his helicopter went down while fighting a forest fire. More info on Gordon's story can be found here. Very cool stuff, but I have a brew to talk about. To the beer!

REVIEW: Avery DuganA

This has been quite a week here on the blog. One of my all time favorite beers bookended by two big imperial IPAs. Today's beer, DuganA, is from one of my favorite breweries, Avery. Their Maharaja is probably the best beer I've ever had so this one has a lot to live up to. When I sit down to an imperial IPA from Avery I have a certain set of expectations. DuganA is berrewed with two-row barley, dark aromatic, and caramel malt, and Chinook, Centennial and Columbus hops. It clocks in at 8.5% ABV and 93 IBUs. Sounds right up my alley. To the beer!

Stone Enjoy By 11.09.12. IPA

I've had problems in the past with beers that I didn't enjoy fresh. Beers that I let sit too long in the fridge before I got to them. Often times enjoying fresh beer can be a difficult proposition. The expiration/ bottling date/ best before marks on beer are sometimes very small, tucked away in a corner, hard to read, or printed in some difficult to decipher code. That is not the case with today's beer. The best before date is right there, emblazoned in type so big, you'd have to be blind to miss it. Freshness is especially key in a big IPA like this because the alpha acids in the hops that provide all of that beautiful hop flavor  begin to break down almost immediately after bottling. Stone made a special effort and aligned specifically with their wholesalers to get this beer into bars and stores across the country less than a week after it was bottled and kegged. The first batch of Enjoy By got sent to Chicago, New Jersey, and Southern California. The second batch, to Colorado and Ohio and straight into my grubby hands. Tons of fascinating info about the brewing, the logistics of getting fresh beer across the country, and even how to vote to get Enjoy By to your state, can be found here. Let's see if those fresh hop flavors are all they're cracked up to be. To the beer!

REVIEW: Stone 16th Anniversary IPA

Back to one of my favorite breweries, Escondido California's Stone Brewing Company. Like many breweries, they celebrate their anniversary each year with the release of a new beer. Most of them are only released once and then never seen again. Although, their 11th Anniversary Ale was so popular that it is now brewed year round and goes by the name of Sublimely Self-Righteous Ale. The 16th Anniversary Ale is an imperial IPA brewed with lemon verbena, lemon oil, rye, and a mix of hop varieties including Amarillo and Calypso. It checks in at 10% ABV. To the beer!

REVIEW: 21st Amendment Hop Crisis

Try as I might I can never go too long without a big imperial IPA. Today's is very big. Hop Crisis clocks in at 9.7% ABV and 94 IBUs and is aged on oak spirals. Seems we might be in for a beer similar to that Dogfish Head Burton Baton I had a few weeks ago. Both big imperial IPAs, both oak aged. Hopefully this one's just as tasty. To the beer!

REVIEW: Dogfish Head Burton Baton

Dogfish Head is known for their IPAs. Well their IPAs and a million other boundary obliterating beers that fit into every other style and even make up some new ones of their own. But go into any bar and you may not see bottles of Raison D'Etre or Sahtea on tap, but any bar worth it's salt will have at least a couple bottles of 60 or 90 minute sitting around. And for good reason, they're terrifically good beers. But as popular as those beers are I think today's IPA might just be better. Burton Baton is a 10% ABV Imperial IPA that's a blend of an imperial IPA and and English old ale that's then aged in oak. sounds pretty awesome, right? To the beer!

REVIEW: Boulevard Double-Wide IPA

A bit of a departure on the blog today, not in content, but we'll get back to that in a second. It's a departure in that I'm posting on a Thursday. I've stuck to a Monday, Wednesday, Friday schedule since starting the blog but today is kind of special. Today is IPA Day. Now on the one hand, I think it's kind of silly. Every other day is IPA Day as far as my beer drinking is concerned. But also, I ought to take any chance to sing the praises of my favorite beer style, the venerable India Pale. More info about IPA Day can be found here. I've even got a special IPA for the occasion. Double-Wide IPA from Kansas City's Boulevard brewing. It's a part of their Smokestack Series and instead of being capped it's corked and caged. This is another of the beers I got in my trip to Indianapolis. Sorry Cincinnati readers, this one will require a road trip for you. To the beer!

REVIEW: Founders Devil Dancer

Today's beer has been recommended to me by a couple of readers. Founders Devil Dancer, what Founders refers to as a triple IPA. In the world of beer double and imperial usually mean the same thing. It usually means that a beer is bigger, bolder, higher in alcohol, and higher in flavor. But when a brewer bumps it up from double to triple? This must be something intense. I was able to find a very fresh bottle of this recently, it was bottled just over a month ago! One thing though. This beer is not cheap. A four pack of this beer will run you well over $20. There's a good reason for this price though. Devil Dancer clocks in at 112 IBUs and 12% ABV and it's dry hopped with a ludicrous 10 different hop varieties. I can't wait to see what I'm getting into here. To the beer!

REVIEW: Three Floyds Dreadnaught

So my brother Cartwright was in town last weekend. It's a bit of a special occasion these days as he's been living out on the east coast and is on his way out to San Diego. We were both hankering for a beer and both share a predilection for the hops so I decided to break out this bad boy to share: Three Floyds Dreadnaught. A big imperial IPA clocking in at 9.5% ABV and 99 IBUs. I'm a bit surprised that this is the first Three Floyds beer I've done for the blog. But if I'm going to do it no better than a big IPA shared with my brother. To the beer!

REVIEW: Stone Ruination IPA

Alright, I've been doing a lot of Summer beers lately. It is Summer after all, feels appropriate. But it's time for me to get back to my wheelhouse. Stone calls this beer "A liquid poem to the glory of the hop." Now, if that doesn't sound right up my alley, I don't know what does. This is the first time I've tried this beer, but it's a beer that's been around for a while. Ten years in fact. To celebrate ten years of Ruination, Stone has just released a tenth anniversary version. Avery cool video about Ruination and it's tenth anniversary counterpart can be found here. I will definitely be keeping an eye out for a bomber of that. So how is the legendary Ruination? To the beer!