Our Tastes-- 8-4-1 Expedition

Conjured by Harpoon, 8-4-1 is an Imperial Brown made in Spring of 10'. A flattening head of 9.5%abv dissipation on a pint of deep medium brown mahogany. EtOH is noticeable on both the nose and palate. It's past it's overall impressionable prime, but still a good beer. It's amazing what you find when cleaning out the beer fridge and organizing the garage. Cereal comes forward in this one, mainly due to the Pale, Wheat, Munich, Caramel, Chocolate, and Smoked Malts used. Hops used include Alchemy, Cascade, Willamette, Crystal, and Sterling. You'll notice "Alchemy" hops which is not a registered hop that I can find but found in many past Widmer Brothers beers, (which I think has been bought out), if I'm not mistaken part of the brew triangle I sipped from was Widmer-RedHook-Kona Brewing, in which they all shared parts of a proprietary strain of yeast and sometimes hop blends. Of course since then they have been also bought out, but the explanation for the "Alchemy hops" from Widmer at the time is:
""Alchemy hops are not a single variety, but rather several different varieties custom blended and packaged specifically for Widmer.* Currently the blend is combination of Warrior and Millennium, though in past years it's also included a small percentage of Horizon hops as well (the acreage for Horizon has been declining the last several years, and with it the quality of selection)* **All three varieties are high alpha, low cohumulone cultivars. **Unfortunately, I can’t give you more details about the current mix because the actual percentages of Alchemy is proprietary.* To ensure against crop failure situations there is a good chance we will look to add another hop to the blend if the Horizon crop doesn't rebound, but at this point it’s hard to say what that variety it will be or at what inclusion percentage.*"
"We call it Alchemy because on an annual basis we look at the quality of the crop and try to mix those elements together to make the golden hop.** In addition, we hand select our hops each year at harvest time to ensure we get the very best that's available.* Alchemy is used as the bittering hop in all Widmer products and it’s been a very successful hop (s) for us."
The beer itself is pretty complex, with all of the brown and candi sugars floating around with the honey and all aged in oak barrels. It's almost taste overload.

Our Tastes-- Dočesná

Session number 38 out of 100, of Harpoon's 100 barrel series! I remember when the 1st one came out! Pours a nice medium brown with copper highlights and little white froth. Aroma is soft but has a very distinct hop to it. This entire series has been interesting. The bitterness lingers with a pleasant soft "pineness". The hop profile to this one seems to be the most interesting part of the beer. Dočesná is the Czech hop harvest festival, hence the beer type, but for a hop harvest beer it doesn't seem very "wet" like most. However, still a good brew even though brewed on 8/11/11 and bottled 8/25/11. Sládek hops from Zatec. A neat ale at 6.1%abv.

Our Tastes-- New Belgium Lips of Faith

My first try at the Lips of Faith series is Biere de Mars. This is a very orange pouring spring offering with a frothy white head. The nose is a flat malt with a splash of sourness, in true French saison fashion. There is no hop aroma that I can detect. The taste is crisply zingy with that same sourness across the palate, no doubt given in part to the Brettanomyces, wild yeast strain, used during fermentation. Brewed with barley, oats and wheat malt, with additions of lemon zest and lemon verbena, this one has a light twang. It's hard to believe that Target, Willamette and Cascade are even in it. 6.2%abv and 195kcal per brew (wonder if that's the caloric for all 22oz?) I like it and would buy it for a palate refresher for sure.

FYI

The leech has 32 brains (ganglia in their case for simple purposes), 31 more than the human (granted we have tons, yes I know about ganglion, Csub0 phase neurons, etc especially for research along with white and red fiber quick "twitch" muslce, even though auto-correct spelling doesn't always kick in). Case in point, more isn't always better and the 1 (true brain) most of us have reading this could possibly use an XtRa? Be smart and think about it..over a great brew. (someone else made a comment to me 'bout bloggin' "beer":(

Our Tastes-- The Incredible Hop

And finally for me The Imperial Black IPA (which may have been the 1st in the series), but I can't confirm this. I was turned on to this style of beer at GABF 2010, when it was first being considered as a true style according to GABF guidelines. At the time, T-rav (BJCP) and former brew master at BlackStone Brewery, was tasting Imperial Stouts, CDAs (Cascadian Dark Ales or Black IPAs) and something else. I just remember his palate and liver being bombarded with the styles he was assigned/chose. Bull n Bush had one on tap and a legged back a couple from Deschutes called Hop in the Dark. These are outrageous brews. However, see previous Junk's Junk posts for Stone's version of the same style of beer, so there's a bit of an argument as to where the style originated? It pours a healthy black with reddish hue and flattening light brown head. I've read 10% but the series seems to hold true at 9.5%abv. The aroma of grapefruit jumps out of the shaker (or tulip) to your nose. These types of beers have really started to grab me by the shorts because of my amour with dark beers but the perplexity of the hop aroma/palate. This one is no different. It gained a 96 via ratebeer and thoroughly deserves it. This one apparently pushes the calorie content but you end up with a fresher mouth:) I'd buy this one over the wheat, but it's a toss up on the BIPA due to the complexity of the yeast.

SB294 Holding Pattern

Well it's official. No bombers (crowned not winged) shall enter the state until August 1st. So at this point they're amassing an onslaught into our state at the borders. As we've all heard many times, "stay thirsty my friend". And at this point your Free the Hops t-shirt may become a collectible soon to be seen on American Pickers!

Our Tastes-- The Incredible Hop

Another in the Fort Collins Brewery series from 2011, was their Imperial Belgian Style IPA. Pouring a a light golden pale with flattening pure white head, this one's hop aroma is cut by the whiff of alcohol and yeast! Upon first gulp, the taste as expected of any other IPA but the bitterness of the hops cuts like a knife across the middle part of the tongue and begins to linger. There is a heavy peppery zest to it and enough hop load to start swelling the ole nasal mucosa. A good beer but not great. The melding of these 2 styles, I've tried myself and anything more than an exact measure of each results in a beer to yeasty or in this case a beer too bitterly hop blown in my opinion, then again those are like elbows, most folks have a couple. 9.5%abv seems to be the standard for these beers, let you know when I get to the next one.