Knights Head Pale Ale

Brewed by Lion Brewery, Inc.
Style: Imperial/Double IPA
Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania USA

12 oz bottle. Pours goldish/brown with a small head. Aroma is medicinal alcohol, spicy hops and apricot. Taste is all alcohol though with only a bit of malts to balance it out. Im not feeling this at all.

Bottle courtesy of kramer17801. Slight haze, mostly transparent copper color with decent tan head, fades to ring of film. Aroma has faint pine, syrup and fruity yeast esters. Flavor really sticky residuel caramel sweetness, fades towards the finish into, fruity esters with the faintest citrus/pine bitterness. Really sticky mouthfeel. Aroma and flavor just lack a little, otherwise not bad.

Bottle. Deep orangy amber in color with a little head. Hoppy citrusy aroma .Apples, and grapefruit. Piney hops. Fruity malty and hoppy flavor. Caramel notes. Sticky sweet tasting. Finish is bitter. Thin body. Decent beer.

Really looks promising, with a thick reddish pour. Pretty mild in every way for a double IPA. The only distinct element here is the thick, sugary, stickinesss on the tongue - likely from the corn syrup. Surprised to learn this is 8+%. The use of pellets may be the reason that the aroma is so muted.

2005 bottle from Kramer17801 shared with OldGrowth on 2/25/06.
Deep copper and orange-rind colored body, clear, with moderate carbonation and a small, fairly dense, white head that is quick to recede to cover and ring, providing little to no lacing, though it does leave a slight film behind.
The nose has a sweet, caramel syrup and pale malt sugariness to it, with bits of pine underneath. Leafy, and rather floral are the hops, with some clean fruitiness to go along with it (cherries, grapefruits, apples). The flavor is quite sweet, plenty of sticky caramel maltiness and lots of other residual sugars, with a moderate amount of hop acidity, typical pine and citrus notes. Nothing really jumps out at me, nor does the texture, seeming a bit loose all around, though the carbonation is fairly low. Alcohol well-concealed, but some more bitterness would go a long way to clear some of the sticky-sweet sugariness that sits on the palate a bit too heavily.

Pours coppery with a creamy white head. Smells hoppy with citrus, yogurt and some perfumey notes. Tastes of lemons and oranges with a nice malt backbone. Finishes metallic.

Bottle Clear light mahogany. Fairly dark for the style. Good full sandy colored head. Thick lacing. Sweet strong malty woody notes with the alcohol apparent as well. Flavors are hoppy and bitter and more alcohol. Quite thin feel and lively carbonation.

Pours with a darkish, amber-tan colored head that forms an initial three-finger thick head. The beer is brilliantly clear and shows a rich ruby-hued amber color. The aroma is nice an hoppy with a up front herbal pine note to it, but it also has a backdrop of subtle citrus note, which are accentuated by a light malt sweetness. The finish has quite a dry aromatic malt note to it that reminds me of crackers.

The taste starts out a bit off dry, but then picks up some sweet caramel notes which lingers on through to the finish. The hop character is definitely here as well, but it is not as dominant as it was in the nose. There is some really weird hop note here as well. It is a bit herbal, but almost vegetal and not in a good raw hop kind of way. I would almost characterize it as a processed hop product, though that is just a shot in the dark. It seems like a bit of the soul of the hops have been striped out and we are left with this not quite hoppy goodness; interesting. The beer is fairly light on the palate, perhaps a bit too thin of a finish. I am not sure what it is, because this is pretty flavorful, but something about this beer makes me think of a macro-lager. There is a solid bitterness here from start to finish; and other than that weird note, I get notes of pine, fresh cut herbs and a bit of orange-like citrus.

This is a drinkable beer, and is even enjoyable (much more so than I have made it out to be), but something is just off here. I don’t think that this beer is old or mistreated, it just seems like it was brewed by a brewer used to making less flavorful brews. I have to check out what this Stegmaier brewery does, as this is my first exposure to them.