Bottle from Jacob Lovenlud, one of the many fine bottles I received recently, consumed on 4/9/06 with SuIIy and OldGrowth.
Served from a wine glass, initially chilled, and allowed to warm to room temperature.
Decants a bright, lucid canteloupe and bronze colored beer with deep blood red and auburn tones. Head is dense, of a medium-beige color and quite sticky, creating light wisps of lace at the top of the glass from the heavy sugars. Light haziness from near-unfiltered nature of the beer (though the bottle we had was more or less devoid of sediment).
Beautiful, expressively hopped nose jumps out from the get-go, funneling juicy fruits and candied oranges straight up the nose, as lime zest, fresh basil and sweet cherries dance about on the sides, keeping things well balanced in the flavoring aspect (of the hops). Bitterness comes from a light touch of resin and raw, hop bud-like note. The caramel malt hits and glazes over everything with a fine layer of sweet, sticky sugars. The ultimate effect is to produce a very juicy, fruity, extremely well-malted beast, that dosent punish you with bitterness. Room for improvement exists in the ratio of hops to malt apparency in the nose, however, as the caramel is rather heavily sweet. Still, this is a faithful rendition of a West coast hop nose.
The flavor is every bit as sweet as the aroma, with rich, creamy caramel malt, light hints of toasted malt dryness towards the end, and a fresh, unpasteurized yeast nuttiness that all set the stage for plenty of juicy fruits. Amarillo-like fruitiness is undercut, somewhat, by cascade-like orange zestiness, which becomes candied, quickly and soon fades in to a floral, mildly bitter centennial-like dry citrus (lemon, white grapefruit, hop-buds, light basil).
You can certainly tell that the texture is full, round, soft and tremendously supportive, while carbonation, if at fresh draught levels, would fully carry the flavors about, not allowing the malt sweetness to build up too heavily. As is, it’s delightfully creamy and rich, with soft fruits, about average bitterness for the style, and some light acidity on the end. Exemplary, and even more incredible in light of the fact that this was made in Copenhagen. Still, taking this blindly, I wouldnt imagine it to really set itself apart from the extremely competitive West coast Double IPA scene.

(On tap) Deep amber colour, clear and filtered with a light brown head. Extreme bitterness from the loads of hops used here - my tongue feels numb after having this beer, and I presume I’ll be able to taste this the whole evening, probably the whole night too. It’s a great tasting beer, but the hops kills it’s more subtle features. Probably every hophead’s delight - but I’m more a malt person. 101004

Draught. Brilliant aroma of hops and melted sugars. Very nice alcohol flavour, but could use more hop flavour. Nice, bitter finish.