What's In My Glass: 8/16/11

Having myself a little mini Founders night tonight as I finish emptying  the fridge in anticipation of all the beer trades that should be starting to arrive tomorrow (I've got five boxes en route that hopefully will all be here by Monday or so. Expect posts and pictures). First up was Devil Dancer, a self billed triple IPA clocking in at 12%ABV and 112 IBUs (International Bittering Units, a measure of how bitter a beer is).

To a certain extent, once a beer crosses the double digit ABV mark and keeps going, calling it an IPA (albeit a double or triple version) becomes a bit of a misnomer. This big of a beer requires a ton of sugar present at the start of fermentation, and with the upper limits of attenuation and alcohol tolerance for most yeast strains, too much sweetness gets left behind. The resulting beer then is more in the vein of an aggressively hopped American Barleywine, with a robust malt backbone supporting the massive hopload, rather than being a more hop-centric beer like most IPAs are wont to be. Style quibbles aside, this one (like the Dogfish Head 120 Minute IPA from yesterday) is jam packed with flavor coming from every angle. There’s a ton of caramel malt sweetness laying a foundation while heavy notes of bitterness and resinous pine weave around a more than slight warming sensation from the alcohol. On a more typical IPA profile the bitterness would be palate shredding, but here it only just manages to balance the maltiness of the beer. It’s a good drinking experience, but one I can only do a bottle of at a time. It’s a yearly release from Founders, and I’ll dutifully pick up a bottle or two every year, but probably not more.

Next up was Blushing Monk a beer Founder brewed a few years ago, and recently brought back to kick off their new Backstage Series of 750mL bottle releases. It's a strong Belgian ale brewed with raspberries.

If the label didn't highlight the use of raspberries in the brewing process, it would be clearly evident just by pouring the beer. Hopefully the picture illustrates just how purple and pink the foam atop the beer is, totally unlike anything else I've seen. The nose is redolent of raspberries, and it's pungent, hitting me even as I'm pouring the beer. The flavor is just as raspberry-centric as the aroma suggests, and it really does get old after a few ounces. This is a beer that would be done a great favor if it was packaged in smaller bottles. I probably could have gotten through 12 ounces without the raspberry assault wearing me down too much, but at more than 25 ounces that definitely happened.