2nd October 2015
Craft Clapham. Bottle share. Route 66 event with most of the London crew. Thanks to Leighton for this one. Hazy gold beer, good cream colour head. Palate is airy and semi dry, good fine carbonation. Fluffy malts, light creamy sweetness. Modest citric orange start to the hops, touch of lemon. Hops spice kicks in and gets stronger. A little pine before a semi dry finish. Pretty drinkable.

Sampled from the bottle. Pours a clear amber gold with a tan head that dissipates to the edges. Aroma has pine, grass and earthy citrus with a grain backbone. Flavor has sweet citrus, grass and light pine with a light grain backbone.

750mL bottled on 10/0X/15 (can’t quite make it out), drunk very fresh on 10/20/15.
Large rocky white head atop a moderately hazy, but thankfully not cloudy, pale golden liquid with plentiful carbonation. Retention is strong. Another perfect appearance as usual.
Tons of lemon, guava, moderate leafiness of the hops but not altogether quite as deeply tropical as the regular version. Not that that’s a bad thing. This one is still highly aromatic, but with some deeper, more dank and at the same time starker citrusy notes. So it’s a bit of an odd one, the bright, sharp, nearly tart lemony citrus notes combined with the more earthy, spicy, floral notes. Still, works perfectly fine and I like that there are no obtuse pine or grapefruit notes. No alcohol and very sparse (though ample) malts in the nose providing biscuits, crackers and a touch of sourdough.
Bitter lemon and lime, with some sourdough-like malt notes (or is that just some tangy hop resin? hard to tell), dry, acidic pineapple and melon and honey on the finish. Hmmm, interesting. The attenuation is clearly spot-on (tending perhaps a touch sweet, but it’s appropriate to balance), just like in the regular version. The hops are a bit more dubious here, for me, however. Very dry and bitter, with some Galaxy-like notes (I say Galaxy-like when I get a very fuzzy, acidic, almost capsaicin-like feel from the hops). It definitely hits hard on the end, giving just a bit more tanginess/punchiness than I’d like, especially in the face of the acidity and dryness. Some more lighthearted mango, papaya and even some sweet pineapple could work wonders here. It’s odd to think the normal and ddh versions could be that much different, but I certainly am not nearly as impressed by what the dry hopping has done here. That being said, it’s still an excellent, drinkable IPA with classic Trillium texture/carbonation (perfect).

750mL bottled on 9/29/15? Their new bottle date is REALLY crappy and difficult to discern...anyways, drunk on 10/19/15.
Clear dark golden-copper liquid has a light beige/off-white head that sits at cover pretty well.
I gotta say, when I poured it, a huge amount of delicious roasty coffee notes are thrown off. Crunchy, toffeeish, almost candied, which I guess is the combo of the malt and coffee. But a lot of fruitiness too. Strawberry/cherry/apple and quite prominent. I bought this bottle, and upper case and then went immediately over to Barrington and had a cup of this coffee. Normally I’m a french roast guy, finding the light and medium roasts to be too fruity, yet this was mild, earthy, sweet and completely not fruity. So it’s a bit sad that this one is heavily fruity, but I guess that’s unavoidable given the inevitable esters on a 10% abv American barleywine. That being said, it’s still pleasing, with vanilla-tinged caramel, spice and bits of herbal-like hops. Alcohol well concealed.
Soft, sweet, candyish-like malt body is a wonderful vessel for this delicious coffee. Bitterness, fruitiness, earthiness and roast all balance really nicely and it’s not just a mouthfull of cold brew like the last batch (with Honduran roast). Little to no acidity adds to softness of palate, with vanilla-creme, lots of fruitiness and earthy, pure roast notes on the finish. Sweet, but for a 10% barleywine, actually quite dry in a relative sense. Carbonation is low to moderate, but tight and adding to drinkability. No alcohol, no obnoxious esters. Quite awesome. Don’t know if it’s just a better coffee addition, but I’d like to hope they’re just improving their coffee beers. PM Dawn Ketiara Aceh up next....

750 ml bottle shared by AdamC. Bright gold color with sudsy head and lace. Well we just had the El Dorado dry hopped 5 minutes before this and it’s strange... It’s smells nearly the same. Perhaps it’s he yeast strain. Aroma is spicy and herbal. The slightest note of pine.

The flavor is shows the weakest note of pine with a huge amount of herbal character. Also has a bit to much sugar in the finish. Like it was not all fermented out. Yeast character is very subtle with the herbal / spicy notes overriding any pine that try’s to come through. Just ok for me.

750ML, Light yellow appearance, great clarity 2 finger creamy head. Smells really nice. little bit of pine, a lot of herb and a sweetness. Good creamy mouthfeel. has this strange peppery cinnamon clove spice taste. Sweetness, good mouthfeel. Not sure about this one.

750 ml bottle shared by AdamC. Hazy bright gold color with legs of lacing down side of the snifter. Aroma is dried flowers, herbal notes, light hints of fruit.

The flavor is overly herbal. Dried flower hints are overpowered by notes of soap. The yeast is hard to find under this overly floral / herbal soap. Honestly it’s really difficult to get past this herbal soap. This is for sure my least favorite Trillium to date. Well, I like to say; "They all can’t be home runs !"

Hazy orange 2 finger white head. solid white. fluffy. Smells really awesome but on a heartier sniff, I get soap, lemon pledge, Mister Clean. Hmm, medicinal taste especially at the finish. Taste yeah so similar to the smell. soapy, cucumber, lemon pledge, sour candies. good malt presence. The ABV is really well hidden.