Legend Hopfest

Brewed by Legend Brewing Company
Style: India Pale Ale (IPA)
Richmond, Virginia USA

In the past week or so I discovered this on tap at both Green Leafe and Taphouse-Ghent and brought home a bomber from Bon Vivant. It’s a deep shiny red beer with a textbook rocky head ... the classic visual appeal for this genre. The aroma assaults your senses with a gigantic hop flourish, piney and citrusy. Once across the tongue, this lives up to the promise of a big, oily, resinous hop-bomb, earthy and woodsy. It has a nice smooth, silky mouthfeel. This is a great big IPA and the best I believe I’ve found from among our Virginia brewers. Good job! (#2738, 3/7/2007)

22 oz bomber. Bottle states this beer celebrates Legend’s 13th Anniversary. Pours to a slightly hazy, deep amber color, with a thick, creamy, off white head, and a lively carbonation. The nose on this beer is excellent, just dripping with hops. Pungent aromas of piney and citrus pair with light aromas of sweet and caramel malt. The palate is firm, with good sweet and caramel malt flavors, paried with a tangy piney/citrus hop flavor. This beer finishes with more good pale, sweet and caramel malts, and then ends with a very bitter, piney, resiney, hop bitteness that lingers. Wow. Big hop aromas, big hop flavors, big hop bitterness. A very well done, AIPA that just screams hops. I loved this one. A perfect after work beer, an aperitif beer, or one to match with firery foods.

Bottle... This beer rocks!... Clear, deep amber ale with copper highlights. Small, frothy, beige head. Great retention. Fruity nose with a medley of mango, apricot, grapefruit pulp and a kiss of pine sap. Lots of grapefruit bitterness in the flavor. Full-bodied with an ultra-satiny mouthfeel and medium carbonation. Although the malt is heavy and impressive, the true backbone of this beer is the massive lupulin. Finishes bitter and grassy. Excellent, world class beer! No diacetyl in my bottle... not that it would bother me as I love butterscotch and butterd toast.

22 oz. Bottle. Pour with copper color, and a thick, lingering fluffy white head. Can deffinatey taste the hops. Orange, grapefruit, and lemon flavors. Pretty good.

The 2006 12th anniversary edition of this beer is a step up in many ways. Heck, it is an entirely different beer. Hops have gone to a combination of Simcoe and Amarillo, and alcohol clocks in at 6.5%. The biscuity malts make themselves known, and the classic hop flavors are present (grapefruit, touch of pineapple, and pine) but not acrid. This, in fact, was fantastic. But I’m a sucker for most Legend beers.
Earlier Rating: 7/17/2004 Total Score: 3.9
They have been toying with this one for a while now, but this is the first time I was ever able to track down a bottle to try. Medium orange, decent head that fades slow and leaves a very nice lacing. Aroma is pure hop astringency, plenty of pine tar, a bit of grapefruit, and bitterness actually hits your nose. In the mouth, pine flavors are up front, followed by the bitter grapefruit flavor. The aftertaste is almost reminiscent of sucking on an aspirin it is so bitter. This is by no means thin bodied, and it has a good mouthfeel. But the malts aren’t just in the backseat, they are stuck back in the trunk of this beer. Although bitter to the point of being almost unpleasant (and I view Ruination as being well balanced), I really liked this. NOTE: had the cask version on 7/18/04 at CAH, malts made themselves known more, far more balanced, a hint of anise flavor in the hops. I’ll leave my original rating as so few will get to try the cask version, but I would probably bump the score up to a 4.1 NOTE: 2007 was a bit thin, just hops and not much else. 2008 has some balance back and in fact rocked.

Bottle from 2008 at Squires. Freshly poured right now as I drink it. Pours clear deep copper with dark straw bottom lip and 1-finger off-white head that retains well. Nose is huge, huge mangoey hops, with caramel malt, honeydew, and canteloupe. The nose here reminds me a lot of Stone X. Tastes very hoppy, tropical fruity, with a solid malt bill, and late resiny flavor. Rich, complex flavor and palate. Waters out a bit late, with the malt taking a backseat and the heft reducing a bit, but overall, if you love hops, you’ll crave this.

Draft, Baja Bean, Staunton VA. Reddish amber with white head. Bright, fresh hops nose of both grapefruit citrus and pine. Medium-sweet malt body with a healthy touch of piney bitterness and full citrusy hops on the tongue. Great balance, great carbonation, great beer.

22 oz bottle. 13th Anniversary. Pours copper color with white head. Aroma floral and piney hops. Taste of grapefruit and malt with a hoppy bitter after taste.