Founders Harvest Ale

Pours very cloudy with a creamy head. High citrus and floral aroma, piney. Smoother palate than expected, high wet hops slightly overpower the malt. Crisp, dry finish. At 7% ABV, try this instead of your usual IPA.

12 OZ BOTTLE via Myst Swap 3.0 (thanks iowaherkeye!. Man i love a GOOD wet-hopped beer and have been wanting to try this one forever. It pours a hazy amber with a large off-white head. Nose is a wonerful bouquet of floral and citrus hoppiness. Taste is everything i had hoped for and THEN SOME. Begins with some semi-sweet maltiness that is a touch biscuity, but stays down to allow the hops to shine through. And shine through they do...orange, pine, sweet grapefruit, spruce, pineapple, apricot and even hay. Damn this is great stuff. The body is light/medium, and the carbonation just right. This is a very well crafted beer that allows the fresh hops to really shine. I am beyond impressed!

Bottle. Wonderfully well balanced sweet hoppy aroma. Hard to imagine a better aroma. Gold in color. Perfectly distributed particalia throughout the body, so much so that it darkens the color somewhat. Small, white head. Some visible carbonation. Excellent lace. Tastes as it smells; perfect balance; very well hopped; moderately sweet. Smooth, somewhat creamy finish. Doesn’t really belong with the typical autumn harvest beers in terms of style or essence. However, I have no problem drinking this beer now or any time of year for that matter. An APA? Seems hoppier and higher in ABV than a typical APA. That said, it has a lot of similarities to 3F’s Alpha King, which also calls itself an APA. It would be interesting to have those beers side-by-side, because they are very similar. Without comparing them directly, I honestly am not sure which I prefer, which implicitly means I think Founders Harvest Ale is underrated.

12oz bottle poured into a shaker. This APA pours like a glass of river water, only the color of straw. It is murky and there appears to be chaff floating inside like tiny little microbes. This beer looks good, real and earthy. The nose is the strong citrus smell of spicy hops. The cold cold beer rinses out your mouth like the forgotten bottle of water in the very back of the refrigerator. The spicy hops can be felt more than tasted in the sinus below your eyes. I found spicy hops, lemon and dandelion but somehow the bitterness isn’t out of control. The beer races down your throat and disappears leaving only the impression of thousands of tiny little grains of beerness on the center line of your tongue. Ummm. The first burp tastes like earth and green leaves.

Bottle from Capone’s. Hazy dark straw pour with 1-finger off-white head. Aroma of honeydew, tangerine, mango, pineapple, syrupy wet hops, and caramel malt...just a lovely aroma that you will crave burying your nose in so deep that you get a heavy Magnum PI-type foamy moustache. The flavor is heavy syrupy hops, tropical fruit as detailed in the aroma section, and a solid amopunt of caramel malt to balance everything out. The palate is rich, with a very crisp, refreshing finish.