Anderson Valley 20th Anniversary Imperial India Pale Ale

MSEyeChart and I are planning on ripping out most of the carpet in our condo, and putting down flooring. As such, that means rooms such as our library/den/beer/computer room (where I happen to be, doing 4-5 different things at the same time on two separate computers!) will need to be packed up and moved out to the garage for a spell. And that means hunting for boxes. Around San Diego, boxes = BevMo. And since this was my first of many raids, filling my Subaru Outback with empty boxes, it was only natural for me to wander inside and see what sort of beery things catch my eye!

Despite the mixed reviews of this, I decided to give it a go, for something like $4.95, if anyone is keeping track.

For me, this was a bit of a work-out, really. Not in the PintOfAle bench-rep sorta way, but rather a tiring exercise in futility. "Maybe it'll get better as it warms", I thought. Or "maybe my taste buds are still outta whack from my recent cold?".

Or....?

Or...., maybe this is exactly what I think it is: a confused, rather messy DIPA: big on IBUs, small on appeal.

Comparisons to the Denoggenizer are on track, though I don't think this is that sloppy.....

But this struck me as very much a "kitchen cupboard"-type of beer. Meaning? If a homebrewer has a bunch of hops (often in laughable quantities), and a rather mix-and-match array of grains, tossing them all into a ProMash recipe and seeing what can be made of them is hardly unique. With predictably off-the-wall results.

Interesting that folks have had much worse results with the draught version of this than from the bottle. Maybe the carbonation/mouthfeel affects this beer's character much more than the norm?

Regardless, this beer's "piney + soapy + minty + peppery + sticky" vibe doesn't really win me over. If this were from an up-an-coming brewery, I could go a bitter higher in my score. But..., sorry. With Anderson Valley's 20 years in the business, they should know better than to overly complicate a recipe. 
//TB