Dark Horse Double Crooked Tree IPA

Brewed by Dark Horse Brewing Company
Style: Imperial/Double IPA
Marshall, Michigan USA

12 oz Bottle with the cool green wax. I’m guessing it’s the 2007 batch, because these things don’t last for long on the shelves. You can smell the hoppy grapefruit just from opening the bottle . It is quite pungent and very forth coming. Into the glass I can smell the pine needles and a very dry hoppiness, some very light caramel, but the overwhelming scent is the grapefruit hop aroma. Pours almost like fresh apple cider a cloudy almost brownish/ orange with a thin sized head that lingers. Taste is heavy on the hops, citrus, nicely bitter, almost candy-like with the fruitiness coming through nicely. The 13.6% alcohol by volume is very well hidden in the brew as well making it very well rounded. I like this a lot, but my favorite IIPA is still Hopslam. This comes in a close second though.

Honestly, this stuff looks just like raw sewage poured into a glass, its baby poop brown with a TON of stuff floating in it, but wait, its tasty! Heavy on the hops, but balanced out fairly well. Not near as sweet as other DIPA’s i have had, and thats good. ONe heck of a lot of grapefruit taste, good stuff here, my rating would be higher but i had to rank it pretty low on appreance, regardless if it is supposed to look like that.

Floral and lavender aroma. Murky reddish brown color. Creamy texture. Bitter backbone and malty thickness. Grapefruit, alcohol and slight sugary tastes as well. The adjectives kept coming as I drank this one so I guess I’ll just call it complex. Nice one.

(Bottle, thanks Ughsmash) Pours beautiful hazy redish amber. Peppery, fresh hop aroma with tones of citrus, mostly grapefruit and orange peel. Also some pine, apricot, lychee and some smaller notes of roses, black tea and alcohol. The malt brings sticky caramel. Hoppy flavour with some caramel sweetness. Hop brings grapefruit, pine, apricot and pepper. Rather fiery alcohol bitterness. Clean, rather nice sticky mouthfeel. Medium to full hoppy bitterness and medium sweet. Also quite dry. Lingering grapefruit aftertaste. Medium to full, malty body. Under rated!

Bottle, green wax, fresh 07. Massive delicious floral and grapefruit nose, hop profile reminds of Dreadnaught, though I’d need to compare side-to-side to be sure. Sweet and alcoholic. Body is full of motionless, suspended sediment and a pretty dark amber-orange gradient, with a very creamy yellow-tan head. Harshly bitter taste, but a little more to my liking that the single Crooked Tree. Tongue-numbing and throat-warming. Obviously huge body. Grapefruit and citrus flavors take on like peach and caramel, perhaps some lychee in the bg. Spicy, peppery, but not resinous. A little over-the-top, let’s see if some age helps to mellow.

Big thanks to Styles for trading this one to me. Pours a murkey deep orange with some nice floaties in it. HOP BOMB ALERT!!!! Aroma is big pine hops, grapefruit, pineapple, and malts. Flavor is wicked bitter hops, sticky citrus, caramel and malts. Very smooth for being such a high alc%. I will be sippin on this one for a while. Thanks again Chris.

Bottle from Ughsmash. Dark amber pour. Aroma is strong on both malt and hoppiness. Flavor is very hoppy and spicy. Good malt balance. Very drinkable for it’s ABV. Fairly dry. Good stuff, very good. Would never guess its strength.

Slightly hazed copper. Thin off-white head. Fruity citrus flowers in aroma, along with some grass. Those hops come into flavor too, but its hotter and has some sweet bready body. Some peppery citrus.