Lips Of Faith - BELGO Belgian India Pale Ale
Bottle into Sam Adams sensory glass. Pours dark copper, wee bit of haze, with a fluffy white head on top of about two and a half fingers. Head settles fairly quickly into a nice dense half-inch cap, and quite a bit of lacing. Nose is rich and very spicy - white pepper, alcohol, earthy pine notes and a bit of nuttiness coming through from the yeast. Taste starts off with more pungent peppery notes, a bit earthy, a layer of alcohol adding a bit of weight as well. This beer feels dense and earthy. Hops come through as pungent, very rindy grapefruit, rolling into the almost tangy caramel body underneath, revealing a rich, almost buttery sweetness as the beer warns to room temp. This one has a denseness to it for sure, quite weighty, almost to the point of distraction. Big, fizzy carbonation alleviates that somewhat, but can be almost as big a distraction in its own right. Ok in the drinkability department, but the big pungent hoppiness is so amplified by the peppery Belgian yeast that I feel like this was just the wrong direction to take this one. Not enough contrast brought into this one, which I feel is the real key to the top Belgian IPA's.