Friday, January 21, 2011
Silver Moon Brewing's Hoptagon IIPA
Silver Moon is a Bend, OR brewery that recently took a bronze at the Great American Beer Festival in 2010 in the pilsner category. Despite living in Portland, I never actually had anything from them until I was at GABF in 2010, at which time the name stuck with me forever once I had some of their Hound's Tooth. I made a special stop in Bend coming back from Denver so I could have a proper pint of it. Anyway, I found this imperial IPA of theirs, Hoptagon, the other night and just had to try it.
It's a light golden color, typical of that of an IPA but maybe a little light for an imperial. Pouring produced a huge head and the beer is incredibly well-carbonated. It dissipated pretty quickly but left a solid surface of foam throughout the duration of the beverage. Lacing was great and perfectly hazy for the style.
This thing is dry hopped like crazy. It really is just an explosion of hops on your nose and is actually quite harsh (great if you're a hophead). It's a very strong floral, whole hop aroma with some subtle hints of citrus and herbal notes. The citrus here is most reminiscent of an orange. Malt is very difficult to find, but there is some sweetness in there.
The first think I notice upon tasting is that the alcohol is very prominent. It really kind of stands out completely as its own character and doesn't mesh or enhance anything else in the beer. The malt character is incredibly weak and the alcohol just completely overrides it. It's very bitter, and in combination with the alcohol, leaves a lingering burn in the back of your throat. Not getting a ton of hops flavor here aside from just general bitterness, but there's definitely some floral character. The body is very full and final product ends a bit dry.
That description kind of made it sound like a bad beer, but I really did enjoy it. The aroma alone made it worth the cost, but I really wish there would have been as much hop flavor in the actual drink. It can never really get too bitter for me, and the burn from the hops and alcohol actually worked well with each other.
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