Posts tagged with "beer,"
Dogfish Head - Aprihop
Today’s review is a special beer for me. It comes to you from Dogfish Head in Milton, Delaware. Aprihop is Dogfish’s “fruit beer for people who hate fruit beers” as Sam Calagione aptly puts it. I first tasted this beer at the Dogfish Head event at Earth Bread and Brewery in Philadelphia and was blown away by it. On to the beer:
Aprihop is an American IPA that clocks in at 7.0% ABV with a modest 30 IBU’s. What really makes the beer unique, obviously, is the addition of real apricots to the mash. If you’ve read the previous post on the Dogfish event that I went to, you’ll know that Sam actually has been brewing this beer for many years but he wanted to bring it back to it’s original hoppiness because over the years it had grown into a fully fruit beer. The 2010 version is the only I’ve tried and I hope they don’t change it!
Aprihop pours a deep amber with an off-white head that sticks around for the entire ride. Modest lacing also is apparent.
The nose is what first blew my mind. It starts off as if you’re sniffing their 90-minute IPA and then after you’ve deeply inhaled there is this wonderful fruity, apricot aroma. The hop aroma is balanced by the excellent malt backbone.
The taste is a three gradient taste I think. It starts of sipping like a regular IPA and then slowly develops into this excellent hoppy, apricot flavor. The sweetness of the apricots are never overwhelming but compliment the hoppiness excellently.
The drinkability on this is high but the ABV will hit you quickly. I paired this with a tuna fish sandwich with banana peppers and it worked wonderfully. Big ups to Dogfish as usual. I may be a Dogfish fanboy but hey, nothing better to be a fanboy of eh?
BrewDog/Stone Brewing - Bashah
Today I am going to take a gander at the collaborative effort between Stone and BrewDog, Bashah.
I purchased this beer at Capones on 2/17/10 for $9.
First some background on this beer: It is a Black Belgian Double IPA. This bad boy clocks in at 8.6% abv. BrewDog blogged about the whole experience working with Stone; definitely worth the read.
Bashah pours a very dark amber, almost black at the thickest parts. Little head to speak of with no retention.
This brew’s nose has almost a root beer-ish smell with a heavy roasted malt top.
The taste is basically if you took it’s nose and multiplied it 100,000 times. The real surprising aspect is the hops which come in way after the initial taste. Really interesting malt front, almost burnt malts as it is, with a big hop taste in the rear. The earthiness really makes itself apparent in this brew as well as slight coffee notes and maybe a tiny bit of chocolate (chocolate in an IPA what?) An excellent beer for the darker months of the year.
I give this beer an 87/100. It’s drinkability is much higher than it looks with the perfect amount of carbonation for a darker beer. Really pleased with this one.
