Charlevoix Vache Folle Bravo Double IPA

Brewed by Microbrasserie Charlevoix / Le Saint Pub
Style: Imperial/Double IPA
Baie-St-Paul, Canada

This is one Limited Edition that I’ll look forward to. Pours a copper brown. Aroma is beautiful hops and malt. Taste is a mouthful of hop with a really nice bitter aftertaste. Beer is well balanced and nicely complex. Thanks to Fred82 for the recommendation on this one.

500 ml bottle from Marche Jovi, served at cellar temperature in a tulip glass.

App.: Clear copper with a nice light tan froth. Aroma: Some nice pine and citrusy hops, a good balance of crunchy, sweet malts, lightly fruity, earthy and nutty, a little earthy, floral honey and pepper, quite nice. Palate: Medium body with soft effervescence, syrupy. Flav.: Big gobs of boozy, fruity malt, some nice floral, peppery, pine hop notes, dark dried fruits, lots of caramel/toffee, some burnt sugar and light molasses; fairly sweet with decent bitterness and light woody alcohol to finish.

Not exemplary for the style, but still quite enjoyable.

Bottle - 500ml. Nice amber/copper body with low carbonation and a decent off-white foamy/creamy head. Well balanced malty/hoppy aroma with sweet, oaky, and spicy hints. Texture is soft, oily. Wonderful, sharp, complex, and well balanced hoppy taste. It carries fruity, caramel, woody (pine, oak), and even some vanilla notes. It ends with a long, warming, robust bittersweet finish. Very well done!

My Bottom Line:
Peppery hop resins increasingly grace this Double IPA, proffering a sizeable bitterness to offset straightforward, silky honeyed malts.

Further Personal Perceptions:
-A sheet of foam tops the clear amber-tinged copper.
-Subtle floral hoppiness appears mostly in the nose.
-This hop is obviously not of the aromatic kind, but it does add lots of character to the finish.
-The soft and prickly carbonation teams up with the suave body for a very drinkable pint of Double IPA.
-Most signs of alcohol are hidden by the peppery bitterness.
-This is another enjoyable, super clean product from Charlevoix.

Bottle.

In short: A sweet, soapy and spicy IIPA. A decent beer but a below average Charlevoix IIPA
How: Bottle 500ml. Consumed very fresh a few weeks after its release.
The look: Clear dark golden body topped by a medium off-white head with medium retention
In long: The somewhat light nose (relative to the style) is a bit soapy/perfumy. Taste is rather sweet with a sweetness profile that I’d describe as 1/3 white sugar, 1/3 caramel and 1/3 honey. There seems to be a lot hops in there but the character is very floral/perfumy/soapy with a spicy bite and don’t provide the type of bitterness or dryness required to balance the beer. Probably has to do with this Bravo hop variety. Alcohol not well hidden. Rather disappointing when compared to Charlevoix’s other single hop IIPA. No hurrah for the Bravo.

Bon goût de miel. Peu de mousse. Légère dentelle. Faible odeur. Légé goût d’amertume.

Sweet, maybe a little too much for a IIPA. I never had the chance to sample Bravo before, and I kinda felt like it was like a high AA Simcoe. Not bad overall, but I found it too much on the sticky malt-sugar side. Might have been a great Barleywine base tought....Toujours aussi bon ce qui sort de Charlevoix...bravo ;-) !!

Bouteille brune de 500ml. 4,69$ chez grand duc. Belle bière cuivrée avec une mousse beige, nez houblonnée, bouche avec une bonne amertume et on goute l’alcool.