Legal Beer

Today I have another brew that I was ever so excited to see on the shelves of The Four Firkins last Monday at their Flat Earth tasting (North West Passage rocks by the way) He’Brew’s Bittersweet Lenny’s R.I.P.A. an IPA brewed with rye in honor of the “obscene” Jewish comedian Lenny Bruce. Upon reading about this brew on their website I was very curious about the concept of an offensively intense 10% ABV India Pale Ale brewed with some malted rye. So far I have been very pleased with the beers I have tried from He’Brew and from reading the solid list of hops contained in this brew (Warrior, Cascade, Simcoe, Crystal, Chinook, Amarillo, Centennial) I doubt I will be disappointed. This beer pours a somewhat dark flat red hue that looks a bit like sherry but is relatively translucent. If you allow it to this brew will easily produce 3 fingers or more of off white head that lasts for a number of minutes and leaves a bit of lacing once settled. Aroma has some nice hop bitterness, dark pitted fruits, a bit of malty sweetness, a good dose of rye and even more alcohol. The flavor of this brew is quite interesting. Citrus and bittering hops hit my tongue first followed by a smooth malty flavors of dark pitted fruits particularly date with rye throughout and decent amount of alcohol in the finish though I find the hops and some malty sweetness lingering in my mouth after swallowing. While I wouldn’t call this brew obscene it sure does have a lot going on yet has a pretty nice balance provided you don’t mind a bit of an alcohol punch and the additional bitterness that the rye adds on top of the hops. The body of this beer is medium and the mouthfeel is smooth for this malty of a brew. This is one tasty rye beer and it will be interesting to contrast it with the other rye beers I have recently purchased. If you are not afraid of large doses of hops and malt and don’t mind alcoholic brews you will likely enjoy this beer. Give it a shot and ride your bike.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 17th, 2009 at 9:09 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.