Golden Valley IPA VS Brut

Brewed by Golden Valley Brewery
Style: Imperial/Double IPA
McMinnville, Oregon USA

Bottle: Shared by the artist formerly known as wolhfs. Citrusy aroma with light grapefruit hops and light alcohol. Pours a transparent orange with a small white head. Sweet orange up front with some light residual sugar. Finshes with a light piney bitterness. Not enough hops for balance.

Provided by Steve: Coppery hue with a lasting head and good lace. The aroma has notes of citric and herbal hops, allspice and pepper, caramel and toffee, and a note of oak. The taste has developed a nice bitterness versus a sweeter malt base. Undertones of both biting apple versus sweet apricots throughout. Buttery oak finish leads to a calming mouth feel. Spicy and woody aftertaste. Good but... wanted more.

Large frothy but quickly diminishing head. cloudy body. light malt aromas. flowery, citrus hop aromas. light alcohol aroma. medium body, fizzy carb. bitter and acidic with light sweetness. tasted to much like champagne for me to like it.

Pellucid mahogany with a foamy, bubbly head. Bitter aroma with caramel notes. Toasty as well. Oak and grapes.Flavor has lots of ooak to it. Lots of bread qualities. Doughy and buttery. Finishes off with a kick of hops. I wasn’t very impressed.

750ml Bottle: Mahogany color, nice carbonation level with a light head and decent lacing. The nose is ripe with brett and oak, sweet fruity grapes blend with the hops. Sweet wheat grass and light bitterness flavors with the continuing fruity theme. The finish is a bit tangy with oak and musky apple notes. Interesting beer, I think more brewers should age with white wine barrels instead of the beefy bourbon and intense cabernet sauvignon stuff.

750 ml bottle, corked, caged and foil-wrapped. Methode Champenoise, aged in Argyle barrels. Pop goes the cork! Dark crimson color, nearly violet, with thick haze and some floaties flitting about...big, long-lasting head. Musty, funky aroma looms over anything else...slightly sour and utterly twisted...thoroughly queer this, more like a Cantillon than any IPA...can barely detect any hops...(this changes in the glass over time, as the must dissipates just a bit) Taste: sweet and sour. Hops dance on the tongue, lash the palate with light bitterness, fruity character dominates and becomes increasingly pleasing. Plummy flavor shines through, with some cherry and grape. Nicely rounded with an edge of oak. Very complex and sophisticated blend, gets mellow in the mouth, despite the protracted alcoholic content (9.5%). Full bodied, dry, fruity finish...bitterness is moderate, malt feels lush. Quite tasty, this...smooth, yet complicated, a unique combination of hops, yeast, sweet malt, and barrel-aging effects. Very special, indeed.

What an amazing concept, another great example of Mark’s brewing technique. The color is rich and has a bit of a cloudy deep golden color with a quickly dissipating head, that clings heavily and leaves a sticky residue around the rim. The flavor is what captures your palate immediately, rich and complex and every sip brings new flavors subtleties.

750 ml. corked, caged, and foiled version(batch #2?) that was riddled, discorged and bottled at the Argyle winery: Wow, amazing package and presentation in a clear bottle that looks like top quality sparkling wine/CHAMPAGNE. Though this has been discorged there’s still some protein clumps dwelling around the bottom of this. Dark syrupy golden color, bit of an effort to remove the cork but there was a satisfying pop. The carbonation is very beer like, not the fine bubbles and collapsing fizz of champagne, still nice sticky Bavarian looking foam. Flavor is very very nice, with an extremely smooth and rich palate but extremely easy to drink, mouth filling smooth hop burps get up into the retronasal and provide a nicely sprucey/noble hop sinus condition. Some noticeable vanilla and caramel from the oak but it’s very smoothly inegrated. Definitely the smoothest and most desireable "Imperial IPA " type beer I’ve ever tried and I can’t help but to romanticize that some turn of the century (that’s 105 back) brewer night have brewed some sort of special reserve type ale as this and aged it in barrels and maybe even done the champagne treatment on it, it has a rustic quality about it that brings on thoughts like this. Anyway, I was skeptical but overall I’d say I’m won over by this, I just wish I could afford another bottle!.