Legal Beer

Here I have another fantastic brew from Three Floyds Brewing, Dreadnaught an Imperial IPA. As you may realize by now the brewers of Three Floyds love their hops; if you didn’t you will now. I first sampled Dreadnaught at their brewpub in Munster, Indiana during this years Dark Lord Day. Even with my severe palate fatigue from all of the other amazingly full flavored beers I had consumed that day Dreadnaught stood out as a fantastically hop forward example of the style.

Pours a modestly hazzy hue that is between orange and amber, closer to the prior. Two plus fingers of tight clean white bubbles are produced, most of which fade within a few minutes. Leaving a few millimeters of bubbles on the surface and a small amount of lacing. Aroma is simply brilliant. Massive orange, grapefruit & other citruses, peach, gentle pine, solid bitterness, and lovely malty sweetness all play in a lovely symphony of scents. Robust bitterness hits your tongue first, followed by grapefruit and orange hop esters that are further emphasized by smooth malt sweetness finishing with an even greater bitter bite and a variety of pine and earthy hop notes. As your palate gets accustomed to the serious bitterness present in this ale gentle flavors such as peach and mango become more apparent creating a wonderfully versatile beast. Similarly caramel notes in the malt are allowed to shine and initial bitterness is reduced as the beer warms and your palate realizes what it is in for. Body is medium and the mouthfeel is a bit syrupy but reasonably light as to not be cloying. The 9.5% ABV is well hidden by the bitterness but is definitely present particularly as it warms. I would encourage giving this one a little bit of time to warm up before serving but also note that the hop notes will become a bit more astringent (emphasizing the bitterness) and the alcohol more notable as it approaches room temperature. Over all any fan of the American style IPA’s will most likely have a field day with this brew. I really can not say enough about my love for this beer; if only they distributed to Minnesota. If you are lucky enough to get Three Floyds or live close enough to the border of a state that does like my self, give it a shot and ride your bike; and send me some while your at it.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 7th, 2010 at 9:30 pm and is filed under Beer. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.