extreme beer: the guide

strong ales and ipa's

dogfish head 120 minute ipa (abv 21% or more): yipes! i paid like fifteen bucks a bottle! there was definitely a lot of alcohol, but i was extremely disappointed because i am a dogfish headhead. it tasted more like some kind of cloying honey liqueur than an ipa. it was the 2003 vintage and maybe was way too old or something? but anyway, i could taste hops in the background but it actually left my lips sticky even as it rendered me incoherent.

hair of the dog brewery, "fred" (10% abv): truly a beautiful ale: copper-red with an amazing foamy head, that persists like sea-foam after the tide has receded. very hoppy, but also with significant malt, it is remarkably balanced and way, way tasty. i wish really great beer wasn't so expensive, though.

lagunita's , "brown shugga" (9.9% abv) it's a lovely brown ale, and aptly named: the sweetest beer i ever had. still, it's beer. and it's also hoppy. ("we believe this special ale is something unique. feeding brown cane sugar to otherwise cultured brewery yeast is akin to feeding raw shark to your gerbil. it is unlikely ever to occur in nature"). the website is funny. and if i can figure out how, i'm gonna try to sample everything they make, from ipa (my basic style) to censored ale etc.

rogue brutal bitter (15 degrees plato): actually seems like an ipa, though a bit deeper. this is a very nice strong ale, british style, with just a hint of mysterious undertones. currently my standard brew.

rogue dead guy ale (16 degrees plato: whatever that means, pretty strong i think): rogue out of oregon has one of the biggest and most accomplished beer selections of any american small brewery. this is a kind of straightforward and fundamental strong ale with lovely color and head. way hoppy.

troegs  troegenator double bock (abv 8.6). just a firm, excellent piece of beer. gentle but still beautiful: lighter and redder than a double bock would usually be. but also pretty subtle and sweet. here i can deal with the malt because the whole thing is perfectly balanced. it's beginning to occur to me that these people from harrisburg can make beer.

 

Barley Wines:

One way barley wine is made is by freezing beer and removing the ice. You can do this with
budweiser, actually, but you’d rather at least do it with a decent ale, though it will be flat when
you’re done.. Anyway, to me drinking inextreme beer is a bit ridiculous: calories-to-alcohol ratio will bloat you and keep you sober simultaneously.

anchor “Old Foghorn” (abv 8.8): course I’d add a few percentage points. But then maybe i
couldn’t have a perfect ale: exquisitely balanced between hops and malt (at least for me: I’m a
hophead), tremendously complex in a way that defies my descriptions (sadly, I’m no real winer or
gourmand), with a perfect red color and perfect ale head. It comes in little bottles that are cute. it
tastes like a perfect british ale but *strong.* what they’re drinking this year in the elysian fields. 10

brooklyn brewery  “Monster Ale” (abv 10.8): first off, the most reasonably priced barley wine
I’ve run across. Malty and sweet and deep - almost chocalatey (a bit much for my taste). Beautiful
brown-red color with a nice english-ale style head. Long malt-syrup aftertaste. 6

dogfish head “Old School” (abv 15%): the highest alcohol ale I’ve ever run across, though
dogfish head themselves advertise a more-like 20% “worldwide stout” (see guide to stouts ) , while sam adams markets “utopia” in tiny brass bottles at, um, 25%, which makes it hard liquor.
But old school is damn good: it comes on with some alcohol, but finishes like just a good,
reasonably-balanced ale. more hoppy than traditional barley wines. why doesn’t every brewery
make a 15%? (or a 15% lite?) anyway, i actually like all the dogfish head products: every one is a
very definite example of what it is. 8.5

flying dog “Horn Dog” (abv 10.5%) a cloudy brown ale with no head. Similar to the weyerbacher
with just a little more hops, though they themselves describe it as maximum malt. Raw. But then
again barley wine can age and maybe this is young. 7.5

sierra nevada "bigfoot" (abv 9.6%): an amazing-looking thing: red and lovely. tastes...interesting: very citrusy. i would like a straighter-up ale if i was choosing but i can taste that this is well and intensely-made and very unusual.

weyerbacher “Blithering Idiot”  (abv:11.1): a completely maximalist ale from pa. as much hops,
malt, and alcohol as you could jam into the bottle. maybe this could “mature” i guess or at least get
more integrated. Cloudy red-brown, strong, strong. Anyway, whatever i may say, i enjoyed
drinking it, and if it weren’t insane I’d call it pretty well balanced.  7

Comments

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[cos]

Not to dis the Dogfish head guys;home base for them is Delaware,I forgot.

[cos]

Check out Yards IPA(Phila Pa)I've had Dogfish Head,Troegs,Weyerbacher(all PA brews)as well as Rouge and Sierra Nevada,and my preference is far and away Yards.Good luck getting it,(easy around here,Philly area).Fight the power.SC

[adam s]

that 120 minute was THICK.

[adam s]

two thumbs up on the lagunita's hairy eyeball barley wine. hoppy, a little malt, but very, very smooth. mellow even. it capped off a great night of IPA beer sampling.

try the Ginger Man in NYC.