Legal Beer

I was turned on to Southern Tier on my birthday when I had a goblet of Hoppe their Imperial EPA which was quite flavorful and complex. So when I saw a number of their bottles at The Four Firkins I had to try some more of their beers. This Imperial IPA pours a slightly hazy but filtered looking light orange color. The smell is quite complex, very hop filled with slight orange marmalade scent in the end. This beer produces a surprisingly little amount of head with a light tan color. Packing in a mega 11% ABV and an insane 153 IBU the scent of this beer is amazingly smooth. Tastes strongly of hops of a number of varieties with a little bite towards the end that is then smoothed out by the malt flavor. A very well balanced beer and surprisingly unbitter, an impressive feat considering the ABV and hop profile. The mouthfeel is relatively smooth but a bit stickier than expected. If your looking for a strong beer this is not a bad choice, though it is very intense and perhaps even more hoppy and alcoholic than I care for, which is surprising but I would definitely drink it again. I look forward to trying some more of their beers. Give it a shot and ride your bike.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 17th, 2008 at 7:59 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.