Top Tastings 2009
ABV: 9%
Origin: Milton, Delaware, USA
Website: www.dogfish.com
Dogfish Head 90 minute Imperial IPA
From a modest British session India Pale Ale (see previous posting) to an all-cylinders-firing modern North American twist on the style.
Dogfish Head started in 1995 as the first brewpub in Delaware, in Reheboth Beach, in its day the smallest brewery in the United States. Success drove the ambition to expand but doing so meant contesting state law which at the time prohibited a brewpub distributing its products. Since breaking out of that particular legal straitjacket it’s gone on to become one of the jewels of the East Coast craft brewing scene, particularly known for strong and interesting specialities, more of which are now popping up in Europe thanks to the efforts of distibutors Bier & Co in Amsterdam and Vertical Drinks in Leeds.
“90 minute” refers to the time period during which the mash is subjected to the brewery’s own process of “continual hopping”. It’s also dry-hopped, and the hop character shines through, though not as aggressively as you might expect, and there’s plenty of rich malt character from the two-row English barley malt that forms the grist to balance the bitterness.
It’s an amber beer with a fine parchment coloured head and a slightly odd hoppy aroma with notes of ripe fruit, sulphur, starched laundry and chocolate. The palate is full of peachy generous amber malt but with a bony, burry, leafy hop intensity, offset by toffee and fruit necater flavours. The finish is dry but not overbitter, with plenty of herbal, rooty flavours over more peachy fruit.
Read more about this beer at ratebeer.com: http://www.ratebeer.com/beer/dogfish-head-90-minute-imperial-ipa/10569/
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