Even before the little green guys start their work this is an attractive beer, pouring the sort of mingled cream and amber that would have Poe scrambling for a clean piece of paper and a biro. Stick the nose in and you get lovely big mandarins at first. Inhale deeper (you'll want to) and there's a lingering threat of pine resins and sinister grapefruit. Strident, wall-to-wall west coast hops.The taste is quite harsh at first: a green acid acrid bitterness with vegetable notes. Leeks to me, broccoli said the missus. The texture on which this is delivered is all slickness: greasy and heavy without any soft malt fullness or roundness. Add in the prodigious hopping and the overall feeling of oiliness is unavoidable.
I confess I had a moment of disappointment at this stage, rejecting the beer like the other Sierra Nevada hop-bombs in 710ml bottles (Southern Hemisphere and Wet Hop) which were just too unbalanced and difficult. But then I had a fit of the vapours. That amazing smell just does not quit. Even when your tongue is drowned in acid bitterness, the aroma just keeps on coming, filling the nasal cavity with those gorgeous juicy fruit flavours. However they've constructed the aroma here it works fantastically, balancing a beer that's basically all hop.
Hoptimum is a symphony to the hop, an aria in lupulin. Clearly the work of someone who knows quite a bit about which hops to put in, in what order and how much. I'd recommend this beer, though I wouldn't recommend following it with a bottle of Torpedo, which ended up tasting as malt-driven as Samuel Adams Boston Lager in the aftermath.
A lovely beer. If only there was a bit more availability.
ReplyDeleteWho gives them grief for being a one-trick pony?
ReplyDeleteSomebody, somewhere, once, within earshot of me.
ReplyDeleteBut the Porter, Tumbler, Kellerweis and Glissade are all tricks the pony is performing poorly, in my view.
My advice to the person that you overheard is to pay a visit to the brewery in Chico before passing such a judgement.
ReplyDeleteBy the way, I agree with you about Tumbler and Glissade. Tumbler was a great idea but their regular Brown Ale was better. Glissade is a huge disappointment in comparison to it's predecessor, Pale Bock.
ReplyDeleteCompletely disagree about Kellerweis. I love that beer.
I haven't tried this yet, but I will. But I have to come to the defence of Tumbler, I thought it was a nice beer!
ReplyDeleteGo to the brewery in Chico? Ever been Chris? It is a monumental fail as a brewery tour. The tap room is cool as well as the gift shop (reasonable prices too) but the tour itself might as well not exist for all the thought that went in to it.
ReplyDeleteThat said, what makes a good brewery tour? To me the Speakeasy style one where you climb over equipment and risk slipping in slopped beer is a good one. You are in the thick of it.
ReplyDeleteSeeing some old coppers from a window is fairly boring.
With you on the Tumbler ... didn't think much of that at all.
ReplyDeleteThe label for this one scares the hell out of me!
BeerBirraBier.
Reminds me of this.
ReplyDeleteDid I say brewery tour? I was commenting on making a judgement on a brewery based upon the beers that make it halfway round the world.
ReplyDeleteIf the pony's act doesn't travel, the pony shouldn't be on tour.
ReplyDeleteI think it's perfectly fair to judge a brewery based on the beer in the glass in front you rather than what may as well be a Platonic ideal of it in a brewery thousands of miles away.
By the way, our Sierra Nevada Beer Camp beer is being re-released in May. Please give it a good review. It's the California Common.
ReplyDeleteI think one of your comments went astray, there Chris, but I take your point: don't criticise the pony's range if you've only seen half its act. I wish I could remember where the comment came from. I thought it was on this blog but can't find it. Maybe it was someone else's. It's perfectly possible that the commenter was familiar with the full Sierra Nevada selection, however.
ReplyDeleteYes, I would agree. Sorry for using the 'I' word.
ReplyDeleteBottom line, if I judged Irish beer by what I could get in my local off-license, I would say that there is no such thing as Irish Craft beer.
Although I 100% agree with you that it sort of improved (or grew on me) the more I drunk, It remains the only SN beer I really didn't like. I just found it all too much! simple as that. On a shallow/narcisstic note; wonderful artwork.
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