Hopsickle Imperial India Pale Ale
Bomber with no bottling or freshness date. Pours a murky, medium-dark amber with a nice thick head, very good lacing and retention. Aroma is pretty piney, but I'm disappointed with the lack of hop juiciness and fruitiness. There's a weird burnt vegetable thing going on as well. Ok. This beer is just inappropriately bitter. I like big DIPAs but they need to have juicy hop flavor as well. This one really skimps in that area, unfortunately. It has a lot of pine, I'll give it that, but it also emphasizes those weird, vegetal hop flavors--garlic, onion--that I'm just not a fan of. It has a lot of malt weight and thickness, but that almost makes this beer worse, as the drink becomes increasingly laborious due the combination of huge body and astringent bitterness. First beer I've come across that is simply too big. Tragic. I finished a bit and am debating whether to drain pour this bottle. I don't think I'm buying anything from Moylan's for a while. (Down the drain it goes. Ouch, that hurt.)