Beer Valley Leafer Madness Imperial Pale Ale

Brewed by Beer Valley Brewing Company
Style: Imperial/Double IPA
Ontario, Oregon USA

RBSG ’08: Poured a hazy light brownish yellow color with a creamy off-white head. Citrusy aroma was decent but lacking. Sweet malt flavor with a pine hop end and bitter finish. Light to medium bodied.

Bottle from ditmier. Thanks!
Pour is a nice clear amber with a big lasting whitish head. Smell is nice and fruity, slightly sweet maltiness, and hoppy. Nicely balanced. Taste is balanced as well. Sweetness and fruity hops go back and forth across the tongue and a light bitterness lingers. Not overly bitter, but nicely hopped with some pine and sweet fruit. Very solid beer overall and surprised by the low style percentile.

Bottle shared by sick_boy282. Pours with a slightly cloudy orange body topped by a medium thick head with some lacing. It’s bitter and hoppy with piney notes, some grapefruit notes and an underlying sweet maltiness. Medium bodied, tingly and a touch dry.

Bomber. Pours a hazy honey color with one finger off white head and decent lacing. Nose is citrus and pine mostly with some faint malts. Taste is light caramel malt upfront that gives way to pink grapefruit and a puckering resin finish. Medium, semi-creamy mouth feel. Hides the alcohol well but a bit unbalanced for the style.

22 oz bottle courtesy of jake65. Pours a lovely amber gold with a thick white head and gobs of white lacing. I’m gonna agree with the individual just below me here and say this was a pretty one dimensional beer. Hops, hops, and more hops. In the nose and in the flavor. Still an enjoyable brew well worth my time. If you’re a hop head, seek this one out.

Bottle from PC Market of Choice in Ashland, OR. This one had a lot of hops, so I’m assuming it was triple-hopped. There wasn’t much in the way of depth to this one. It was more like a dare to see how much hop they could fit into a beer. That’s cool, but it loses some overall satisfaction for the one-dimensional approach. Still, it was good stuff.

Tasted from bottle at RBSG. Cool name. Cloudy yellow color. Not so hoppy. Medium bitterness. Leans sweet.

A brisk pour produces a four finger-thick, light tan colored head that just crests the top of my 25cl tulip glass without overflowing. The beer is a clear, red-tinged, amber color that shows an almost brilliantly clear, copper color when held up to the light. The aroma is suitably hop focused with notes of pine needles, a green herbal note and sharp citrus notes of grapefruit and sour orange zest. Really the aroma is quite herbal in focus (including ample pine notes). The aroma finishes with a significant, though clearly supporting, biscuit and cracker like maltiness. Not the most hop complex nose, but certainly serviceable for a hop lover.

Creamy textured up front, but then a fizzy carbonation kicks in and ruins this a bit. Amply bitter from the get go with a strong, green, herbal hoppiness that just lingers on the palate long after the sip has left my mouth. A sharp, grapefruit hoppiness lies just behind the dominant pine and bitter notes, but this seems to be the most notable part of the citrus hop component. The hops in the finish get a little astringent especially when coupled with some hot alcohol flavors. A chewy malt character kicks in towards the middle of each sip accenting a solid biscuit character. This has a chewy body, enough to help support the hop character, but not so much that it is overly in the Barleywine category. As the beer warms up it softens up a bit and becomes more drinkable as it loses some of the harsh hop notes; though it starts to pick up a lacquered hop, almost phenolic, curing plastic note as well.

Definitely an aggressively hoppy brew. It doesn’t have the hop balance that I like to see in a double IPA though; I prefer an ample hop fruit character that is tempered by the herbal & pine notes, while this one is opposite to that. Allowing this to substantially warm up from the 52°F / 11°C starting temperature really goes a long way to improving this beer though (despite that phenolic / lacquer note that is a bit nagging in the finish).

Purchased: Plaza Liquors, Tucson AZ