Doublelips Imperial I.P.A.
The Tap Brewing Company (MA) in Haverhill, Massachusetts, United States 🇺🇸
IPA - Imperial / Double Regular|
Score
6.85
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Appearance - 8 | Aroma - 8 | Flavor - 7 | Texture - 6 | Overall - 7.5
Clear amber body with a small creamy tan head. Sweet pine and citrus hop aroma with a caramel background. Sweet pine and citrus hops flavor with a mild caramel background and a floral flavor coming through in the ending. Medium-low carbonation with a fairly smooth bitter finish.
Appearance - 8 | Aroma - 7 | Flavor - 7 | Texture - 6 | Overall - 6
Cask pint, freshly tapped on 6/19/06 at Redbones.
Medium-high clarity shows very good brightness from the outset. Cherry-red with some auburn and darker ruby hues is the body, complemented by a large, mostly well-retained off-white head that provides light lacing in patches. The beer seems a little bit colder than I would expect, as the cask must have just been pulled from the keg room. Some light carbonation seems added, as they do at Redbones sometimes.
Anyways, ripe hop acids, deep leafiness and mountains of fruitiness rush forth, bursting with cherry, orange and lively, sweet pears. Green, dense, chewy, acidic hoppiness is immediately at odds with dark caramel and heavily sweet pale malt sugars in the nose. Some prickly bits of grass and flowers, and really nothing in semblance of pine or heavy citrus, thankfully (for my tastes). But acidic and very hickory-nut skin-like. Pungent, I suppose. No alcohol in the nose, with a medium to medium-high strength.
The flavor is not as malty as suggested, which is odd, but the high amount of hop bitterness and acidity seen in the leatherlips translates well here, cutting the caramel malts and sugary notes, with a very deep, green, thick, almost cannabis-like buddiness. I use all of these stupid descriptors not to be cute, but because it’s quite unique to my tastes and very different from your average Double IPA. Certainly no California DIPA, and hardly resemblant to any others I’ve had anywhere. But well-malted, quite tight in the mouth for a cask beer and with plenty of chewiness from the malt on the finish, perhaps a bit too much. The residual sugar makes itself known more in mouthfeel than in sweet flavor and the hop notes are very robust and engaging, without being terribly drying or crisp. Some toasty, earthy, almost English-like malts and light nutty yeast round out the beer, with no alcohol noted in flavor.