Legend Imperial IPA

Brewed by Legend Brewing Company
Style: Imperial/Double IPA
Richmond, Virginia USA

Immense thanks to The_Beer_God for sending the Legend!

Pours a hearty bronze body and a chunky tan head. The aroma engulfs the senses with notes of caramelized citrus. Bold notes of brown sugar, hit of maple syrup.. grapefruit… grapefruit, pine sap, tangerine, some spruce chips, ohh… and grapefruit! This is massively chewy and gruffly bold; Providing me a hugely DRY bittering finish with a hint of heat on the back end. If you’re an IPA lover then you will find a new lustrous relationship here. NICE!

Extremely hoppy, yet well balanced. Taste of grapefruit and pine. Nice carbonation and excellent body and mouthfeel.medium body, bitterfinish,

2004 bottle provided by and shared with bucknaked, 4/28/2005. Pour is fabulous, brown-amber-golden colored body is unfiltered, with a yellowish/cream colored head, thick and very well-retained, plenty of lacing. Aroma is immediately strong and intense of lilacs, hugely bitter hops and lightly phenolic perfume. First sip and I’m exclaiming, "Damn, this is the best beer I’ve had in a while!" The perfumey alcohol and bitterness in the nose creates a floral/spicy hops concoction for a flavor, plenty of thick, almost syrupy malt. As it finishes, notes of pine sap begin to surface. . .uh oh, this is not going where I had hoped. The next sip gets even more sticky and sappy and finally after 4 or so sips, I can’t even finish my glass. The pine sap and HUGE resin flavor/consistency is just ridiculously unbalanced. This could be worse than Devil Dancer. I’m never a big fan of huge amounts of munich malt in barleywines or Double IPAs and this is no exception. A slight sourness to the malt, very sticky and mostly dry, with that sugary pils malt sweetness, a hint of candied oranges in there. Body is certainly full, can’t fault that, but the beer is so unbalanced and cloying it’s not even funny. Interesting experience, though.

Orange. Lightly malty aroma (caramel), with agressive hops (apricot, orange, resin), and a hint of oxidation. Really dull nose. Flavor is extremely hoppy, full of rich, sugary malts. Oily, raw hop texture. Early oxidation. Modest, mediocre, Double IPA.

Sample courtesy of Wohlfs. Re-rate courtesy of Pailhead. Pours bright copper with decent head that fades to film. Big c-hop aroma’s, citrus and perfume-like floralness. Again c-hop galore in flavor, floral and citrus fruit, with a little pine hop resin, but no malt whatsoever. A little unbalanced but decnt nonetheless.

Beer pours reddish amber color with a dissipating off white head. Aroma is a bit unique for an Imperial IPA, more caramel malty with some citric hoppiness and I am afraid big diacytl. I have not had this bottle very long and things don’t seem to be going very well. Dominant flavor of wet cardboard. I am going to say this is oxidizing heavily, maybe I just don’t care for it. Maybe I will get to try another sample down the line.

22oz bottle-Thanks ot Kinz for sending this one my way. Well, unfortunately, the tale of this beer is that it fell flat on its face very fast! Pours a clear orange hue with a small wthie head. big diacetyl nose coming through even before the glass reached my face. Some citruc notes come through the huge diacytl note. piney hops-grapefruit mostly on the flavors with some good crystal/munich malts to back it up. the diacytl is not as aparent on the flavor as the aroma. resiny, dry finish, but the diacytl wins in the end.

Golden-copper body with an off-white head. Aroma has a pronounced charge of diacetyl. Smells like candy corn and popcorn butter. Not much hop character in the nose. Flavor is better with a piney, resinous quality and some firm bitterness that hides most of the diacetyl flavor. Palate seems a little slick. This is a substandard and disappointing imperial IPA. The short history of this beer baffles me.