Moylans Hopsickle Imperial India Pale Ale

Brewed by Moylans Brewery & Restaurant
Style: Imperial/Double IPA
Novato, California USA

Departing the 22 ounce bottle, the beer shows a slightly muzzy gold with a hint of copper, the gargantuan, creamy white head towers over the body, after its eminent demise, the lace seals the glass with a fine coating. The aroma of hops permeates the nose; sweet malt takes a rumble seat to the spiciness, lime like crispness, a hop lover’s nose for sure. Front has a pleasing malt profile, sweet with the hops providing a lip smacking tartness, just a tad bit of alcohol finds its way into the mix, top is medium in feel to the palate. Finish has a prickly acidity, the hops “Blows The Doors Off The Taste Buds”, and the arid aftertaste glues itself to the palate, another good beer from a great brewery.

Cloudy honey-colored with a smallish white head. Nose is quite bitter, with lots of citrus, a touch of caramel. Flavor is quite sweet, backed up by a dry, nutty bitterness. Plenty of grapefruit, almonds, and touches of vanilla and cake.

Pours clear copper with a good sized light tan head. The aroma has lots and lots of hops - piny, tropical, earthy, citric and floral - very nice. It is nice and bold with very little malt presence that’s noticeable. Medium / full body that has a lot of lick resin and soft carbonation. It starts off with pine cones, pine needles, dry grapefruit and earthiness. The finish is very earthy with dark pine. Highly resinous. A great IIPA.

To put it into uncertain terms, this meets with hop lover approval. One has had beers roughly this hoppy before, but doubtful any hoppier. The thing with beers like this is one-dimensionality, that dimension being hops. This went to the top, and then over and back down a ways; it’s just a bit too much of a great thing. The film of bitterness sticks on the palate in less than the most pleasant of ways. On a more whimsical day, I’d give the beer extra points for going out on the limb of ridiculous extremity, though I’m having a tough time remembering doing that for a beer that lingered not-exactly-pleasantly on the palate like this. My throat is left dry-scratchy and with the flavor of thyme. Sound pleasant to you? Then you’ll love it.

Bottle, at LCRBM 2008, ’s Hertogenbosch, Netherlands
Clear, blond body. Off-white head. Aroma of alpha hops (amarillo, cascade) delivering a great complexity. Harshly bitter (hops) 16flavour. Good complexity. Very well balanced. Even not very 1 dimensional on the hops.

Pours a cloudy ruddy orange amber. Thick densely packaged beige-ish head. Caramel/toffee, citrus, grapefruit, pine resin nose. Sweet, chewy malts up front, toasted, roasty, medium to full body, dry, earthen, citric, floral, perfumey, pine hops linger along a drawn out finish. This is not far from some hoppy sex in the mouth. Khaki hop shorts, struttin down the sidewalk. Toss me some salad, you braggot. Thanks to Turd Ferguson for making me bring him to Julio’s for this luscious puppy.

Pours with an amber body topped by a medium thick head with some lacing. It’s slightly sweet and malty wtih tons of piney hop notes and a slight touch of grapefruit. Full bodied, dry and suprisingly smooth.

An unclear dark amber beer with a thin beige head. The aroma is very hoppy and grassy combined with light notes of caramel. The flavor is strong with notes of caramel and grass. Nice.