Knights Head Pale Ale

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

This IPA was smack dap right on for the style. It was nice and aromatic with a great hop punch. And at $17.99 a case locally, you can’t beat this. I will be having this again since my first taste was at the Split Rock Beer Festival. Recommended.

Bottle, courtesy of Michael Knies. Amber bronze, thin white head and moderate condition. Initial raw fresh oily hop resin in the nose followed by sweet fragrant malt tinged with toffee and caramel and a pleasant pepper spiciness. Quite alcoholic in the mouth with a slightly perfumed caramel maltiness and resinous hops with some fruity citrus notes. Lingering flowery perfumed hop and gentle nutty maltiness in the finish.

Acquired via a trade with kramer17801. The brew pours to a nice copper orange glowing body with a creamy off-white head. The aroma is full of hops. Oranges, grapefuit, pine. The flavor is really malty with caramel malts bringing up the front and followed by nice floral and grapefruit hops. It does have a spiciness to it too. Given what I’ve read about the cheapness of this brew, they really were able to make a quality product for next to nothing. Not the most elegant, but this certainly has its qualities. Way to go Lion! I’m sure Mr. Stegmaier would be proud.

I was quite impressed bt this beer. Smooth, no aftertaste. None of that ’’powdery residue’’ that some popular beers leave. A consistent quality, making me think that this is a a carefully refined beer. I would love to take this to a regional beer festival and put it out there with some of the favorite craft beers to see what the tasters would say on a beer to beer taste test. A very good value too. My wife made a nice pick with this little gift.

Strong up front citrus hop aroma, sweet malt flavor. For a small regional brewery that for the most part produces macro pale lagers, Steg Anniversary is a gem of an offering. This limited offering cost me $19.95 USD for a case. When brewer Brandon Greenwood left Nodding Head brewpub for the lead role at Lion Brewery I only dreamed of beers like this being created in W-B. Now that Greenwood has departed Lion Brewery I don’t know if a beer of this magnitude will be offered by the brewery again.

Bottle courtesy of kramer17801: Pours a clear dark copper orange with a nicely-lacing,wispy white head. Fresh floral grapefruity hoppy aroma has some toasted toffee and hints of strawberry. Body starts with a lightly sticky and sweet caramel maltiness well balanced with lots of fresh green bittering and flavor hops. A nice IPA.

Name: Anniversary IPA
Date: 03/28/2007
Mode: Bottle
Source: Trade

cloudy burnt orange, wispy beige head, drips of lace, big sweet caramel, pine, and grapefruit aroma, the body gets stickier and stickier, lots of sticky sweet flavor with essence of tangerine and pine, light bitterness stays out of the way but provides for a soft bitter finish, grapefruit bursts forth about halfway through,

Aroma: 7/10; Appearance: 7/10; Flavor: 7/10; Palate: 8/10; Overall: 15/20
Rating: 3.7/5.0
Drinkability: 8/10
Score: **4

12 oz Bottle: If it pours, smells and tastes like an IPA it must be an IIPA. As is the case with Stegmaier’s Anniversary IPA. It isn’t as hop-heavy as some west coast brews, but still quite good. I actually appricated it being an IIPA and it not being all hops all the time. It is kind of medium bodied and palated, which is nice in the world of over the top, in your face IIPAs. I really quite liked this beer, and was expecting it to be one of the more average beers in my trade with Kramer17801 but it was quite good! There are some nice malt undertones to even out the brew.