samer/thoughts

There was one big disappointment for me: One of the scheduled to appear brewers was Larry Bell of Kalamzoo Brewing Company in Kalamzoo, Michigan. Larry got stuck in a snow storm and could not make it, and Jerry Bailey stepped in with his brewer from Old Dominion. Luckily I had made it to the Bell's beer tasting at the Brickskeller not that long ago.

Onto the beers. I went the second night, Jan 29, and the lineup was a little different from the first night. There were twelve big whopping beers:

1. Imperial Stout from Capitol City
2. Double IPA from Avery
3. Second Batch Millennium from Old Dominion
4. 271 IPA from Oggi's
5. 75 Minute IPA from Dogfish Head
6. Swami's IPA from Pizza Port
7. Slobber Knocker Barleywine from Capitol City
8. Hog Heaven from Avery
9. Tupper's Cask Pils from Old Dominion
10. Ding Ding from Oggi's
11. 120 Minute IPA from Dogfish Head
12. Hop 15 from Pizza Port

To say this is an impressive list of beers is to be about as understated as you can get. These are huge beers. Big in taste, alcohol and something else. Oh, yeah. HOPS. Lots of screaming hops.

I thought both entries from Capitol City were good, but did not quite hit the mark for me. The IPA was much hoppier and tastier than the Slobber Knocker, so much so I went looking for it the next day at the brewery. It was a 9% beer that had about 50 pounds of hops added to a 50 barrel batch. The Slobber Knocker was a touch sweeter and less aggressive with the hops, but still weighed in at 11.5% abv.

The Avery dry hopped Double IPA was pretty nice, but the hops were a bit overwhelming to the beer (6% abv). I like a nicely balanced beer, and I think that adding three-quarters of a pound of hops to the keg might have been over doing it. It was almost like chewing on a hop pellet, and that isn't a great thing.

The other Avery beer, the Hog Heaven barleywine, could take the extra hopping. At 9.2% abv and about 100 IBUs, this beer had an added pound of Columbus hops in the keg. It had the green twinge of hops in the taste, but it was well balanced and one of my favorites on the night.

The two Dominion beers were a bit of a disappointment in this setting. The approximately 5.5% Second Batch Millennium was not hoppy enough for this tasting. I did like this beer, it has some interesting character to it, but just not in a hop slam venue. The Tupper's Cask Pils, a fine brew on its own, was just drowned out by the time we got it. No amount of hops could have saved this beer because it could not have been balanced. Without the huge hops, my taste buds were incapable of tasting it.

Pizza Port's beers were nice and hoppy and bitter. The Swami's IPA, around 7.5% abv) was pretty damn hoppy and a little unbalanced for my tastes. The Hop 15 was fantastic. This beer had 15 different hops added, one every 15 minutes. Also not hugely balanced, but by the time I got this beer it did not matter. Another one of my top five.

Oggi's had a spectacular showing. The hugely hoppy 8.3% 271 IPA kicked some unbalanced hop butt. This beer had seven pounds of hops in a seven gallon batch. Let me explain how much hop that is: if I was brewing a nice and hoppy beer, I'd probably use six OUNCES in a five gallon batch. Tom Nickel said that his "checkbook is in balance, not my IPA." This beer was over the top and was my second place choice on the night.

Their Ding Ding was also a fantastic beer. At 10.5% this Imperial IPA could really flourish with all the hops. Tasty and in my top five.

Leaving the best for last, Dogfish Head brought in a mix of their 60 Minute and 90 Minute IPAs and called them 75 Minute IPA. At 7.5% this mix of two damn good IPAs was then dry hopped and the result was quite smooth and nice.

But, the coupe de gras of this tasting was the already phenomenal 120 Minute IPA. How big is this beer? It is 20% alcohol. Twenty. It is 120 IBU. It is boiled for a full 120 minutes. It has 660 calories in a 12 ounce bottle. It is utterly drinkable. This beer is a monster. But is Sam satisfied with that? Hello no.

He went and created this thing he calls "Randal the Enamel Animal". He claims it will add so much hoppiness to the beer that it will strip the enamel off your teeth. It is a steel tube filled with fresh hops through which the 120 Minute IPA flows. It picks up a huge aroma of hops. This was the only beer that got a full 10 out of 10 points on my scale. Phenomenal.

And these are the final results after the judges finished the counting:

1. Dogfish Head 120 Minute IPA
2. Capitol City Imperial IPA
3. Oggi's 271 IPA

I highly recommend you make the next one of these tastings. This one rocked.