REVIEW: Dogfish Head 75 Minute IPA

I've been trying my damndest to come up with something clever, or interesting to say in the intro here. You know what? I've got nothing. Dogfish Head 75 minute IPA. It's a blend of their 60 and 90 Minute IPAs but bottle conditioned with maple syrup. To the beer!

REVIEW: Brooklyn East India Pale Ale

It's been far too long since I've taken a look at a beer from Brooklyn. Almost a year in fact since I talked about their terrific Oktoberfest. But the liquor store down the road from my new apartment has had the East India Pale Ale here on sale so here we go. To the beer!

REVIEW: Stone R&R Coconut IPA

Two wild brand new IPAs from Stone in as many posts? I must be doing something right. Today's beer, much like the last Stone collaboration beer I had (the fabulous and bizarre Dayman Coffee IPA), is borne of homebrewers. A couple of dudes, Robert Masterson and Ryan Reschan, won Stone's recent American Homebrewers Association contest and won the right to have their beer brewed at Stone with a little help from Paul Sangster and Guy Shobe of Rip Current Brewing. That's a pretty rad prize if I do say so myself. So a big west coast IPA brewed with an irresponsible amount of hops and hearty additions of toasted coconut? Sounds awesome. To the beer!

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: Indigo Imp Firebrand

So the other weekend I found myself up in Columbus for a graduation party. As I am wont to do when I travel, I took the opportunity to grab a handful of beers that I can't get at home. We have one of those beers today. Firebrand, a Belgian style IPA from Cleveland's Indigo Imp Brewing. And how great is that label with that Mike Mignola-esque little demon? I checked around online just to double check that Indigo Imp's logo wasn't actually drawn by Mignola himself. It's clear that the artist responsible is a big fan. The use of shadow, the harsh, stark, angular linework, the deceptive simplicity. Beautiful stuff. If you dig the art on this label you will undoubtedly enjoy the art of Mike Mignola, one of my all time favorite comic book artists. He's the guy that created Hellboy. Hellboy, and it's sister book B.P.R.D are some of the best comics you'll ever read. Seriously, go check them out. Enough comics talk. 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: Founders All Day IPA

Long time readers of the blog will remember that this isn't the first time that I've taken a look at this beer. Way back during last years Cincinnati beer week I had this at a very cool pint night event at the Cock & Bull in Hyde Park. I wrote out some quick thoughts, but I really like this beer and it deserves its own proper post. So here we go with Founders' All Day IPA, a 4.7% ABV 42 IBU session IPA. To the beer!

REVIEW: MadTree PsycHOPathy

So the first two MadTree beers I've looked at this week have both been pretty great. The hearty, robust Gnarly Brown and the interesting and tasty Happy Amber. That just leaves us with PsycHOPathy. A 6.9% ABV India pale ale, which has quickly become my go to beer down at Great American Ball Park. Let's not waste any more time. To the beer!

REVIEW: Stone/ Aleman/ Two Brothers Dayman

I enjoy It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia. It's never really been appointment viewing for me, but I enjoy it whenever I watch it. That's a long way of saying that I quite enjoy the name of this beer. I remember hearing about this beer quite a while ago when I watched this video from the Iron Brew Homebrew competition back in December. Well, I didn't have that video in my mind when I bought this bottle, but once I read the back of the label which talked about the origins of the beer I remembered back. So anyway, the guys at Aleman won the Iron Brew competition with their coffee IPA. Which combines two of my all time favorite beverages and sounds just bizarre enough to work. I'm very excited to try this one out. Let's not waste any more time. 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 Aprihop

So I've been pretty stubbornly avoiding the spring seasonals. Part of that is the ridiculous nature of the timing of many of these beers. Many summer beers have been on the shelves for weeks now. That is a topic that's been talked to death though. I think the main reason I haven't been partaking in many spring seasonals is that up until quite recently it hasn't felt anything like spring. But now that the weather has improved and the trees are starting to get green and the Reds are off to a 5 - 3 start it seems like it's finally time to crack open a few spring beers. Enter Aprihop from Dogfish Head, a 7.0% ABV 50 IBO IPA that's brewed with, you guessed it, Apricots! I'm also drinking Aprihop out of Dogfish's new IPA glass. It's supposed to accentuate hop aromas and maintain a good head. Whatever this glass does I think we can all agree it looks pretty rad. 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: Revolution Anti-Hero IPA

Another new beer from Chicago's Revolution Brewing today. This time their Anti-Hero IPA. Let's just take a moment to appreciate the terrific art on that can. A four star hop general with an eye patch, and hop paratroopers! Add to that the lovely, limited color palate and big chunky typography. I love it. 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: Uinta Hop Notch.

This week I'm taking a look at a brewery that's new to Ohio, Uinta Brewing Co. out of Salt Lake City. I have been waiting with bated breath to get my hands on some Uinta beers. But for once, not because of the good things I've heard about the beer inside. My excitement for these beers is 100% due to those stunningly, drop-dead gorgeous labels. They are designed by The Tenfold Collective, a design firm in Loveland, Colorado. Seriously, that is some amazing work. The vintage look, the terrific typography, the simple lovely illustration, and the great choices on color. And check out the bottle with the compass markings! I mean, come on! This is the kind of work that makes me a bit sick to my stomach that I didn't do myself. I like The Tenfold Collective's work so much I even applied for a job there a while ago. But enough of my gushing. Let's see if the beer inside is as lovely as the art on the bottle. To the beer!

REVIEW: Sierra Nevada Celebration

If the Anchor Christmas ale is the original Christmas beer, today's isn't far behind. Sierra Nevada first brewed Celebration in 1981. Also making it special is the fact that this beer is a wet-hopped IPA, certainly unique for a Christmas beer. I know I'm intrigued. To the beer!