New Holland Imperial Hatter

Brewed by New Holland Brewing Company
Style: Imperial/Double IPA
Holland, Michigan USA

22oz Bottle. Thanks Sean! Strong, near-barleywine hop perfume for an aroma. Dense and a good bit caramel. Floral, resiny, and backed with alcohols. Pours a slightly hazed orange-amber, with a nice white head. Flavor is a spicy version of hops. Saffron, black peppercorn, cardamom, and a bit of mace. Very sticky. This is very drinkable, considering it’s heft. The alcohols rise quickly and bring many resins, pine cones, and morning flowers to the nose. Lots of grapefruit. Smacks very dry and long, with satisfying bitterness to play off the caramels. Excellent! Another Michigan Imperial IPA that I think can hold it’s own against the West Coast versions.

This starts with an aroma of biscuity malts, with a hint of pine hop in the back. Pours a nice reddish-amber, with a big fluffy white head. Slick and oily mouthfeel, not as hoppy as I would expect. A decent bitterness, and a touch of pine and citrus, with a caramel finish. Not the best DIPA, but a drinkable one.

This beer was a disappointment. I picked it up because of previous good experiences with New Holland beers and a love of DIPA’s, but my reaction to the taste was the same as Homer Simpson’s after biting into a rice-cake: Hello! Hello! Hello, taste? Where are you? This beer just didn’t really have much of a flavor, particularly for a DIPA. It started out well enough, with a nice amber-copper color and soapy head formation. Aroma was amiss - just sort of non-existent. Flavor was the same...very mellow maltiness and that’s about it. If I imagined really hard, I might have been able to detect some oxidation, but it certainly wasn’t rampant. And unfortunately there was no date code on this beer to verify its age; however I thought a DIPA would stand up to time fairly well, particularly in the cooler at the liquor store. I wasn’t impressed with this beer, but I’d be willing to give it another chance. I bought this bottle at Blacklick Liquor on Broad St in Columbus/Reynoldsburg/Blacklick.

I liked this beer...nose is faint, but still there...body is slick and fairly full for the style...grapefuity, soapy hops are balanced very well with malt...good.......................................

Solidly malty and nicely bitter. Nothing over the top per style, but I really enjoyed it. Citrus and sticky pine in the aroma with a fresh, soapy hop quality. Dark copper pour, inch thick off white head and thick lacing. Medium bodied, and thick for an IPA (just how I like it). Bitter and malty with a resinous coating. Grapefruit, caramel and pine flavors dominate. Some lemon and a faint nuttiness round out a good balance.

nose of pine and the lawn. appearance seems syrupy; mouthfeel defies it. flavor is of all hops all day long. solid for the style, the thing that sets it apart for me is that while the ABV nears the high side of the scale for the category, it comes across increasingly smooth.

Bomber. Pours a darkish copper with a lasting half inch of creamy foam. Aroma is big with grapefruit, resin, caramel and a light woodiness. Flavor is caramel quickly dried by the resin, wood and grapefruit. Near-medium body is smooth, dangerously drinkable, and dry.

Single bottle purchased at Friendly Mini Mart in Lakewood. Mmmm, this aroma is nice and full of green apple, grapefruit, clove, pepper and cotton candy. The view is a hazy attractive orange glow with a thin light cream head. The flavor is a rather full but not overblown one. It hits with a some good citrus sweetness up front, kinda flowery, but then subsides rather gently to some oily malt texture. Only then does it close out to some bitterness, which hangs on the palate.