Dogfish Head ApriHop

Brewed by Dogfish Head Brewery
Style: Fruit Beer
Milton, Delaware USA

Draught @ WABF 2008. Pours a clear golden color with a small white head. Has a fruity apricot aroma with some hoppy hints. Fruity and slightly tart crisp apricot flavor with some hoppy hints. Has a fruity finish with hints of apricots.

Filtered way too much for starters. Aroma is weak and thin. Taste is weak on the apri as well as the hop. Weak. Don’t waste your money

Pours a nice oranage color with an off white head. Aroma is of fresh apricots and citrusy hops. Flavor is much the same, DFH really made a winner with this one, the apricots and hops meld so well together, this is so refreshing on a nice spring afternoon.

Sampled at the Tampa Lowry Park Zoo WaZoo Festival. Very tasty and nice hoppy balance with apricot flavor.

Not a horrible IPA. Didn’t really detect much fruitiness. Not much of head. To me, it had a strange after taste to it. Maybe a tang, citrus flavor more then a bitter flavor. Worth trying a couple, but I probably wouldn’t buy again.

Tasted on tap. Looks like an IPA, smells like an IPA, tastes like a damn fine IPA. The hint of apricot is so slight, I’m not even sure it’s there. Nice sweet hoppiness, good balance between all the components. Very nice and enjoyable ber. Not to sure it should be classified as a fruit beer, but, whatever, it’s good. Worth checking out.

Reddish-orange color. Almost no head. Aroma of apricots, some hops, a touch of caramel malt. Flavor of apricots mainly, but dry, and good hopping. A bit of caramel malt in the background. Well balanced between fruit and hops, though not much malt to speak of. Very dry and refreshing, good use of fruit. Dry, fruity finish.

First of all...crap name...Aprihop? Hmmm, I have had my doubts about DFH; granted they make some spectacularly challenging beers and have garnered a reputation as pushing the brewing envelope; but personally, I find their beers to be far too unstable for most of my tastes. I took a chance on Aprihop and bought a 4 pack from Raleigh, North Carolina’s World Market. Took out the first bottle, interested to see what this might be like. I approached with an open mind and a curious palate but simply could not get into this one. Pretty much zero smell from the head, unbalanced mouthfeel. No hop backbone to be found; and the apricot element that was supposed to be so elemental in the finish was more about stale gym sock feeling. Puckerish, dry, not interesting, and certainly not even close to what I would consider an IPA. Confusing brew.