Hops Infusion

Initial Review:

Shared a bottle of this with xlperro while hanging out at his place last weekend. As this was the first beer of the evening to feature hops (a key feature for hopheads like myself and xlperro!), I was really looking forward to this. But maybe it's the fact that the first two beers were rather wishy-washy "summer" ales, or perhaps something was more distinctly wrong with this, but there was something about this beer that just didn't sit right with me.

Nice complex hoppy aroma -- which fits I guess, considering that this said to be made with 7 different hop varieties. And looks interesting enough, with a few yeast/hop remnants floating around (not a hit in my book).

But the flavor profile, on the other hand.... sigh Where to go with this review on that one.... Um, I think the Word Of The Day for this beer is "Raw". Yes, that works. Quite raw and rugged in all aspects of the flavor profile. Very green and young, in that all those hop varieties may not have had much of a chance to cozy up and get acquainted in the Conditioning tank and/or bottle. Not necessarily a bad thing, but something that was a little annoying and perplexing, IMO.

This overly raw "green-ness" of the beer kinda turned me off, to be honest, and I'm kinda glad that I only got 6 oz of this to work through. An interesting experiment from a part of the country that I never expect hop-heavy beers (Victory a notable exception, of course), but something that really needs some tweaking before it can hit the Big Time.

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7/10/03 Re-review:

Got a bottle of this via beer trade, after UPS jerked me around for well over a month or so. So maybe it's the rough handling that this beer received in transit, or the mere fact that I have a full pint glass (vice half from xlperro's bottle), but this beer seems a bit better to me this time. Adjusted the drinkability up a bit. Very interesting....!

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06/16/04 Re-review (Draught):

Had a pint of this at The Bier Garden (Portsmouth VA), while waiting for Scooter77 and Mrs Scooter77 to arrive.

A bit smoother and less rugged than I remember from the bottle. Still a little unworkable in the backend (especially as this warmed up), but overall, not a total loss.

Scores adjusted to represent a mean average between the various tastings.
//TB

Initial Review:

Shared a bottle of this with xlperro while hanging out at his place last weekend. As this was the first beer of the evening to feature hops (a key feature for hopheads like myself and xlperro!), I was really looking forward to this. But maybe it's the fact that the first two beers were rather wishy-washy "summer" ales, or perhaps something was more distinctly wrong with this, but there was something about this beer that just didn't sit right with me.

Nice complex hoppy aroma -- which fits I guess, considering that this said to be made with 7 different hop varieties. And looks interesting enough, with a few yeast/hop remnants floating around (not a hit in my book).

But the flavor profile, on the other hand.... {sigh} Where to go with this review on that one.... Um, I think the Word Of The Day for this beer is "Raw". Yes, that works. Quite raw and rugged in all aspects of the flavor profile. Very green and young, in that all those hop varieties may not have had much of a chance to cozy up and get acquainted in the Conditioning tank and/or bottle. Not necessarily a bad thing, but something that was a little annoying and perplexing, IMO.

This overly raw "green-ness" of the beer kinda turned me off, to be honest, and I'm kinda glad that I only got 6 oz of this to work through. An interesting experiment from a part of the country that I never expect hop-heavy beers (Victory a notable exception, of course), but something that really needs some tweaking before it can hit the Big Time.

=====================

7/10/03 Re-review:

Got a bottle of this via beer trade, after UPS jerked me around for well over a month or so. So maybe it's the rough handling that this beer received in transit, or the mere fact that I have a full pint glass (vice half from xlperro's bottle), but this beer seems a bit better to me this time. Adjusted the drinkability up a bit. Very interesting....!

=====================

06/16/04 Re-review (Draught):

Had a pint of this at The Bier Garden (Portsmouth VA), while waiting for Scooter77 and Mrs Scooter77 to arrive.

A bit smoother and less rugged than I remember from the bottle. Still a little unworkable in the backend (especially as this warmed up), but overall, not a total loss.

Scores adjusted to represent a mean average between the various tastings.
//TB