Clipper City Heavy Seas Loose Cannon Hop3

Brewed by Clipper City Brewing Co.
Style: India Pale Ale (IPA)
Baltimore, Maryland USA

Another wondefully hoppy aroma from these guys with a slight bit of caramel it seems. Flavor has a strong hop character, a bitter finish with a little noticeable alcohl, but quite good all around.

Bottle courtesy of HogTownHarry. Orange-copper colour with a medium white head. Aroma of grapefruit and resin, mmmmm, hops! Big flavour, lots o’ hops with some brown sugar malt to balance. Not much to add, it’s just a solid, sessionable (despite the strength) IPA.

Best Before: May 2006
Super clear amber/copper coloured body with a very thin slightly off-white head. Aroma of nice fresh hops full of pines and spruce with a mouthwatering quality. Medium to Full-bodied; Sharp hoppy flavour with pine and flowers most common with a good malt backbone and a decent alcohol taste. Aftertaste shows a lot of the hop character with little else aside from reasonable malt. Overall, a decent beer...a bit lacking in general, but good for an IPA. I sampled this twelve ounce bottle purchased from Chevy Chase Wine & Liquors in Washington, D.C. on 19-Dec-05.

On tap, 2006 RBSG RFD tasting. Pours a crystal clear copper body under a thin film of off-white head. Aroma is of floral hoppiness, lightly fruity, and some sweet malts. Flavor has alot of apricot and some light malt with moderately bitter hoppiness. Finish is lightly bitter. Palate is very creamy with very soft carbonation, making for a great mouthfeel. The mouthfeel on this really ups the overall, just a nicely done session IPA.

12oz bottle pours amber with a sudsy thin offwhite head that clings well to the sides of the tulip and laces on the way down. Aroma is floral hops and a touch of grapefruit over some bread. Flavor is nice and hoppy but not overwhelming notes of grapefruit and mandarine oranges. Also some smooth caramel malts. Blended together very well great balance and a smooth palate. Alcohol is covered well. This is one of those IIPAs that doesn’t crush your palate with in your face hops, but very smooth and balanced and drinkable. Nice..

Best before Mar 06, drank Nov 05: Clear orange with a thin white head. Big grapefruit nose with some resiny pine, full bodied with a thick feel and solid carbonation, starts and ends bitter. Thanks Aaron!

12oz bottle. Hazy, golden-orange appearance; big-bubbled white head. Lots of grapefruit and citrus in the aroma; hints of orange. Medium-to-full mouthfeel: chewy orange; plenty of citrus hops, well-balanced by maple syrup maltiness; light carbonation. Long, orange and maple syrup finish.

Best before date of May, 2006; Sampled December 2005
Pours with a brilliantly clear, copper color that is topped by a frothy light tan colored head. The aroma is just plane sticky with hoppy fat lupulin glands. The aroma is redolent of ruby-red grapefruits that have that mix of sweet citrus notes, tart citric acid, and sharp, floral grapefruit peel oils. The aroma is definitely hop-city, and is quite sublime for any lover of in-your-face American hop-levels. Is there anything else in the aroma? Maybe there is a hint of alcohol at the end, a bit of herbal hop character, and perhaps some accentuating notes of sweet malt, but all of these are quite secondary to the overwhelming grapefruit hoppiness that is found in the aroma.

The taste is soft and creamy up front, with just enough malt/ caramel sweetness to accentuate the citrus-like hop flavor. The finish has a solid, though not overwhelming, hop bitterness to it, which is in perfect balance with the malt sweetness. This beer screams American C-type hop flavors though; everything else is secondary, including the bitterness in the finish. What a fantastic hop character this beer has. It is just so fat and flavorful, it really is like sucking on the nectar from a mythic citrus/hop flower.

I don’t know what it is, but this beer seems to have awoken the inner hop-head in me, this beer is just really hitting the spot right now. Everything is working to accentuates all of the hop notes that I like to see in a beer. As my palate gets used to it a resinous pine-like note begins to become noticeable, and the bitterness in the finish begins to take on astringent mouth puckering proportions that just beg for another sip of this hopaliscious brew. I am pretty sure that I never want to have this beer again, because there is no way it will live up to this singular experience of right here, right now. The quirks of beer drinkery, have delivered me the perfect convergence of time, place & beer; definitely one of the top beer experiences of my life. This is definitely one of those things you can’t explain, you just have to experience it, the beer itself, objectively does not add up to it, but, regardless it happens. Here is to the journey, and the next beer that satisfies the soul.