What's In My Glass: 8/23/11

Well, tonight ends my run of hoppy beers just in from trades, and I kicked it off with one I’ve had and enjoyed before, SurlyFurious.

As its darker than average color hints, there’s a fair bit of sweetness serving as the backbone of the beer, but only to support a ton of hops. There’s a fair bit of pine running neck and neck with the citrus in the flavor profile, which give it a bit of a unique twist, at least as far as IPAs that I’ve had are concerned. I’ll hold off on formally reviewing this one until I crack the second can I was lucky enough to receive.

The final stop on Bill’s Out of State IPA tour was Great Lakes Lake Erie Monster, an imperial IPA.

 I was looking forward to trying my first beer from Great Lakes, and ended up a bit let down. The beer did have a little bit of age on it, but it was still shy of the printed “best by” date (albeit by only about a week). It still had maybe the nicest pour of any of the beers I’ve had recently; I almost took a second picture of all the lacing it left stuck to the glass, but that was the high point. I thought I might be in trouble when the beer smelled grainy more than anything else. There was an aroma of oranges as well, but the first thing I thought of was the smell of a bag of grains that I’d get in one of my homebrew orders. It managed to be a little more hoppy in flavor, with a strong orange flavor that sets it apart somewhat from most IPAs/IIPAs, but it still lacked the overall hop punch that any good imperial IPA is going to deliver. I look forward to trying Great Lakes porter, which should be a bit more resistant to short term aging, and Oktoberfest, which is undoubtedly fresh, but this one was a miss for me.

Tomorrow I’ll be going into the city for a homebrewing class hosted at the Brooklyn Brewery, but I might not get around to posting an entry about it until Thursday.