High & Mighty Purity of Essence

High & Mighty Beer Co
Brewed at Paper City Brewery
Style: Premium Lager
Holyoke, Massachusetts USA

Sampled at vt brewfest 09. Pours a pale yellow with a small white head. Aroma was grassy and grainy with a touch of spiciness. Flavor follows the aroma and has a crisp and bitter finish.

In short: A cross between a lager and a grassy thirst IPA. Good brew.
How: Tap at Vermont’s Brewers Festival 2009
The look: Almost clear dark blonde body topped by a medium off-white head
In long: The hoppy nose blends grass and pine-tree. Slightly toasted malts with a light-moderate caramel presence. Well hopped but not overly so. Hops blend dry grass and pine-cone needles to create a bitterness of medium intensity and a nice moderate dryness. Hops dominate here, had I not known that this is a lager I’m not sure I would have guessed it. I didn’t know High & Mighty were making hoppy lagers like this. Nor did I know that they had hired the marketing team of Kelvin Klein perfume to name their beer.

My Bottom Line:
This beautifully drinkable Kellerbier (with American flair) is the scene for the refreshing equilibrium of lightly caramelized, toasted malts and herbal, almost zesty hops. This is the kind of beer I would like to have in the fridge all the time, but which is sadly quite rare in these parts.

Further Personal Perceptions:
-A rocky head of foam decorates the hazy, bright amber, lacing admirably.
-The body is lean and the flavor profile balanced until the hop finishing bitterness, whose leafy zing has a lot of endurance.
-Herbal (noble) hops are more present in the nose than the malts.
-Orange zest highlights appear towards the end.
-Carbonation is frothy and made of big but soft bubbles.

Bottle.

Bottled June 2008. Pours amber with an off white head. Off malty aroma with a hint of hops. The flavor has the same off malt, a little bit musty I guess, and light hoppy notes. Definitely past it’s prime. Still drinkable, but if you see an old bottle on the shelf pass it over.

Pours a cloudy brown with a faint soapy head. Aroma is of spicy fruit, almost like hot sauce. Almost no malt aroma. Medium body with some sweet potpourri and horse blanket mustiness. Very smooth finish with an amazing balance.

22 oz brown bottle with bottled on date (June 4, 2008) poured into an American pint glass. Appearance: Almost tawny amber hue with nice white head. A very thin layer of white remains after settling. It’s unfiltered, but duh, it says that on the label. Nose: Orange is immediately noticeable, and sweet malt, sarsaparilla, and Indian spices register. Palate: Carbonation is moderate to high. Agitation reveals a lot of dry-hop characters and a little dustiness. There is an umami character here poking out between bursts of bitter hops (leaning on the pine-y side of things, not the citrus side). Nice and bitter, decent body, with a red kool-ade note right in the mid-palate. Notes: Although this beer is sufficiently bitter and gets points for that IPA-esque extremeness, it seems to lack something in the middle. I get a strong nose, and an initial bitterness on the palate, a quick mid-palate of fruit and then immediately on to bitterness and dry hops again. I wish there was more in the middle.

<i>My bottle (650ml) shared with HogTownHarry, garthicus & tupalev.</i> Pours a cloudy orange-amber with lots of tiny sediment and an average size diminishing creamy white head. Aroma’s pretty decent, toasty and nice and hoppy. Flavour’s simple and delivers what it says, a hopped up Lager, also a little fruity and with a good bitter finish. Average bodied. I quite enjoyed this -- solid stuff!

Bomber - Poured a slightly cloudy dark amber in color with a foamy off-white head that settled to a thin covering over the top of the beer. Aroma is clearly hops... flowery with a hint of spice. Flavor is medium bitter with plenty of flowery hops. Finishes mildly bitter and is slightly sweet right at the very end. OK, not great... refreshing though.