Deschutes Double Bale Quail Imperial IPA

Formerly brewed at Deschutes Brewery
Style: Imperial/Double IPA
Bend, Oregon USA

Damn, they sure masked the alcohol well in this beer. Very crisp and hoppy, this beer really let the sweet maltiness come through in a nice way as it warmed.

Orange-amber. Small, dissipating, yellowish head. Vineous, some chalk, some hops and orangepeel. Bitter; hops, but even more roasted malts. Glimmer of sweet malt underneath, but the roasted varieties reign. Long bittereffect. Extremely full-bodied, chewy. Aftertaste is just the prolongation of all those hops. It’s better than some hopmonsters. Especially the mouthfeel pleases me. Still, it remains a bit lopsided.

Bottle. Average looking. Strong, complex, and difficult to rate. The aroma wasn't as vigorous as I was thinking it would be: sweetness, mint, but no hoppy grass clippings like most west coast IPAs. Excessively dry mouthfeel and I didn't like the finish either. Somehow the flavor was complex and boring at the same time. The 10% was well disguised. I don't feel like I got a good idea of what this beer is really about.

Translucent rosin. Bubbles struggle to find their way to the top in this viscous liquid. Soft, mellow barleywine-like aroma with a huge bready, toffee malt base alongside notes of honey, flowers, spiced rum, vague citric zest, pine sap, and fig. Disappointingly only a trace of wood. Slightly syrupy. Gentle, yet slightly sharp carbonation. First sip yields pure bitterness and miniscule complexity, if any. Lemon rind, mild caramel trace, and astringent honey dipped pine cone. Very little evidence of any malt structure. Numbing alpha acids, raw hop cone, medicine, and phenolic notes become apparent long after the swallow. This would be more pleasant if the walloping, Chinook-like bitterness was toned down. I’ll see how my other bottle fares with about twelve months age behind it. I expected this to show more character, with its being oak conditioned and hugely hopped. I'm quickly growing bored of these uninventive, redundant hop juices.

(RAF 03) Insanely hoppy. Reminiscent of a hoppy barleywine. Big alcohol prescence. A bit much.

RAF'03- Big hoppy monster. Piney, grapefruity, even appley and peary. The alcohol was strong along the entire trip. Nothing there to balance it on any level. I bet the couple wearing the hop-head head covers loved this one!!

Out of the bottle this beer was hazy orange with a minimal head and a nose of fresh, piney HOPS. Pinching HOP bitterness, with lots of orange rind, lime and pine resin flavors. I found this to be a one dimensional beer. HOPS. Its not a bad one dimensional beer, but it is annoyingly unspecial. (HOPS)

cask (RAF): flat transparent copper with a malty aroma joined by some alcohol, english hops, and coconut tan lotion..flavors were brown sugar, orange, flowery hops turning resiny in the aftertaste..the mouthfeel was sticky sweet..grassy too..