Lagunitas Undercover Investigation Shut-Down Ale

Brewed by Lagunitas Brewing Company
Style: American Strong Ale
Petaluma, California USA

Similar in tone to most other lagunitas specialty brews, this one wins out due to near immaculate balance of malt and hops. Pours brown-gold with slight receding head, crisp hop nose chased by enveloping toffee tones on the palate, in turn chased with typical lagunitas high IBUs, this one gets to hang around in the cellar a while, just to see what happens.

22oz bottle Pours out a clear amber topped with a small tan head. A great aroma of hops (maybe a little pot smoke J/K???) A great hop tast very smooth. what a nice brew on a hot day.

Nice ruby-amber color with decent clarity and a full, creamy, off-white; lasting ability is great and lacing is fairly tight and plentiful. Nose is nice with loads of citrus (grapefruit and tangerine, almost tropical), pine resins, light herbal hop notes, and backing caramel and sugar cookie notes. Flavor is heavily of pine needles with some citrus notes (mostly tangerine) and nice herbal notes that progress into the finish. Malts are set underneath the nearly high bitterness with hints of caramels and faint fig. Palate is warm with noticable alcohol but never overpowering; medium to full, somewhat velvety and round, and moderate carbonation. Finishes long with most of the sweet malt notes slowly disappearing leaving a big herbal bitterness and warmth. Not necessarily original or carrying to much complexity, but well done for an Arrogant Bastard clone. Plenty of bitterness but without overpowering sweetness and nice malt background notes. Would be nice to try in a six months to a year once the warmth calms down a bit, but even still, warmth adds to the power of the beer. Quickly becoming a favorite brewery of mine.

Pours a slightly cloudy amber-mahogany with a thin, fine, tan head. Light hops aroma with some fruitiness and a bit of dry maltiness. Flavor is predominantly of alcohol followed by dark orange peel hops flavors and dry caramel malt notes--all soaked in intense bitterness. The balance is a bit off here. The heavy bitterness works for me but the overt alchohol flavor and hotness doesn’t sit well. The hops and malt flavors are good but are shoved into the backseat here. This is a good beer that has some issues.

Clear amber color with a thin film of bubbles on the surface. Serious grapefruit/hop aroma with a trace of sweetness. Strong hoppy character with a solidly malty background with pine needles and a bit of alcohol. Not very complex stuff, but pretty solid.

Great beer. Very nice balance between malt and hops with enough complexity to make it interesting.

22oz reddish beer. This offering from Lagunitas smelled like sugar and hops. This beer is extremely drinkable... even before I noticed the 9.9%, I knew that this was going down quickly. Most of the flavor is the sweet malt. It reminds me of a double bag from Long Trail, only this one has more hops and more complexity. The finish is nutty and there is no alcohol flavor even as it warms up a little. This was the best Lagunitas that I have had.

Poured from a 22oz bottle into a shaker. This beer poured a clear, dark amber color with a thick, foamy beige head that lasted. Some thick lacing was left around the glass. The aroma was very strong. It was made up of huge citrus hop notes and also toffee. The flavor was full of caramel malts and finished with a slightly lasting grapefruit bitterness. The mouthfeel was medium to full-bodied with light carbonation and some slight tounge warming alcohol. It was also a bit oily. I really enjoyed this beer. It had good balance for a big beer, with exceptional aroma and flavor.