What's In My Glass: 8/13/11

After almost a week off, I was back at it tonight. First up was Belvidere Big IPA from Rock Art brewery in Vermont.

It was a bit of a letdown, both as a double IPA and as my first beer in a week. There was a pretty intense bitterness mid palate, which isn't unusual for a big IPA, but there was no payoff this time in terms of hoppy flavor. Big bitter is OK as long as it's part of an absolute hop bomb, but this one kind of peters off from the bitter bite, without much in the way of hoppy flavors.  What is there seems to come primarily from Simcoe hops, which aren't my favorite hops per se. There's just something off about the tropical fruit flavor they tend to leave. In the end, I didn't even feel like finishing the bottle, it was that mediocre of an imperial IPA

Next up was Breckenridge 471 IPA, another double IPA from this month's haul from Amanti Vino (my local bottle shop) and their Beer of the Month club.

 This one was a bit better than the last one, and a pleasant surprise. Simcoe and Centennial were among the hops used, and they are two of my least favorite hop varietals. Together though, they seemed to cancel the negative aspects of each other out, there was no harsh edge to either Centennial's grapefruit nor Simcoe's tropical notes. I was a bit wary of Breckenridge after their lackluster Vanilla Porter, but this beer was much better.

Last up was the truly unique beer of the night, the collaboration Acer Quercus between The Bruery and Lawson's Finest Liquids.

This one is a big rye beer brewed with maplewood smoked malt and maple syrup. I wasn't sure about the beer at first, it seemed more of a novelty than anything else, but as it warmed it really came together. Smoky flavors dominated both in the nose and the taste, with maple and spicy rye notes playing supporting roles. Maple was more prominent in the nose, and rye in the flavor, but all in all I just ended up wishing that smoke was a little less dominant.

Aside from the false start with the first beer tonight, I cracked a couple good ones while I boxed up a couple trades I'm sending out this week. I'll be dark tomorrow due to work, but be back Monday night with a pretty cool trip into NYC planned.