Pizza Port Hop 15

Brewed by Port Brewing/Lost Abbey
Style: Imperial/Double IPA
San Marcos, California USA

Courtesy of After4ever, thanks Tom! It is hazy, orange-golden with a small, creamy head. The aroma has notes of citrus, spruce, melon, papaya and a touch of cooked vegetables. The flavour has a light sweetness, notes of citrus, papaya, melon, spruce, light malt and a hoppy bitter finish.

Bottle # 167. Hazy dark golden colour with a baige head. Heavy hoppy aroma and taste, great. Medium to full body and a bitter finish.

Bottle. Grapefruit and red berries in the somewhat medecinal hoparoma. Firm oily hop flavor, somewhat medecinal with grapefruit, lemon and red berries. This beer is malty enough, but this is overpowered by the omnipresent hops. Long oily hopbitter aftertaste with pineapple.

Bottle. Pours a nice hazy orange colour. The aroma is sweet and fruity with a good hoppiness. The flavour is sweet with a good fruitness, pine, citrus and some alcohol. Fruity and dry bit sweet finish.

A Mes rate: Bottle at weekend of tarts afterparty.
An attractive dark golden brown with a good white head. Huge American hoppage with some balancing caramel and underlying sweet malt. Nothing unusual here just a straight down the line solid double IPA.

Bottle, bought @ YNWA, Kolding. Pours a nice, hazy orange with a medium, creamy white head. It stays for quite a long time and leaves fine laces on the glass. Great aroma with lots of grapefruity hops, some pine, oranges and grass. But there is a great, soft maltiness to it still, quite bready with notes of caramel. Mouthfeel is lightly creamy with prickly carbonation and great dryness. Truly wonderful, balanced flavours. Lots of grapefruit, very bitter, very dry. Malts is biscuity, bready and has soft caramel. The oranges notes appear as well. Truly a wonderful IIPA.

Bottle acquired in trade with DarkElf (thanks!). Labeled hand bottle #183. Poured a dark copper/mahogany color with an averaged sized off white head. Aromas of grapefruit, pine, flowers, oranges with nice malts in the back ground. Tastes of grapefruit, pine, oranges, caramel, and with some biscuit. Perfectly balanced tastes. Light alcohol in the finish. Gave me a couple of nice hop burps. Definitely reminded me why IIPAs are my favorite style.

Astonishingly steady white head covers a clearish orangey golden hue. Characterful and extremely complex nose is defined by the incredible amount of aromatic hops used. They don’t focus on anything, literally transporting us into a vortex of grassy, herbal, floral, piney, perfumey, leafy nose saturating hops. More than adequate malt base gives it the necessary caramel, cookie and honey sweetness to deal with it. The blending of both monsters create a fruity and surprisingly smooth animal of litchi, tropical fruits, apricot and pepper that takes life in the form of a medium and slick body, of surprisingly engaging carbonation. Strong alcohol accentuates the oily resin feel, but the carbonation dealt with it gracefully. A masterful execution of a too good to be true undertaking.

The last bottles I’ve had from the Lost Abbey plant have left me less enthusiast. Very sweet maltiness, yet overwhelming hops which have lost their tropical nature that I adored. The alcohol also seems to bug me whereas I’ve lost the biscuity feel I adored. Dropping from 4.0 to 3.4

Having tried that a few more times since, I must say I just don’t really enjoy it, the bitterness is too much and I don’t see the remarkable integration that most Port beers have.