Oh, Nico and Sully, you crazy guys! What is this monster?!? It's the wrong beer to come home to, after a long day at the office, because you'll be asleep long before dinner.
I poured, without looking at any of the packaging, a 12 ounce can of 21A Hop Crisis, in anticipation of a delicious IPA.
Yeah, buyer beware.
Instead I unleashed a 9.7%, 94 IBU animal, which has this absolutely fan-freaking-tastic pineapple/star fruit aroma and just a ridiculous lacing that clings and sticks to the side of the glass like a spider web.
For being such a high gravity beer (read: high alcohol) it is incredibly pale. I mean I have had Weiss beers darker than this! And it's clear too! No nutso cloudiness that typically comes with the DIPA/Imperial IPA style.
A first sip, while still fairly cool, yields some of that tropical flavor and zippy bite from heavy use of bittering hops-my guesses: Amarillo, Tomahawk, Citra?
Letting it warm for 10 minutes allows a lot of the oak it was aged on to really come through and deliver a French vanilla note and a quite pleasant smoothness, rounding off that initial bitter edge.
Letting it sit for another 40 minutes while your pizza cooks unlocks something amazing too! A blinding smoothness that makes this simply irresistible.
9/10, and guaranteed not to disappoint!
(Must appreciate a disturbing use of hops and heavy-handed amount of alcohol.)
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