Alpine Beer Company Exponential Hoppiness

Aroma: 8 | Appearance: 8 | Mouthfeel: 8 | Flavor: 8 | Overall: 8

Holy Hoppiness Batman! .. . Pours a deep copper, great foam .. . biting bitterness, what a beer to start the day! . . lots of sweet crunching hops with a slight stroke of bark and syrup .. . a nice brewski! .. . I'm taking you to the station. - Where is it?

Aroma: 8 | Appearance: 10 | Mouthfeel: 8 | Flavor: 9 | Overall: 9

22 oz. bottle (courtesy of a trade with stawn, a generous trader) poured into a Duvel snifter. Pour revealed a hazy orange-gold with a small off-white head which settled to a coating. Lacing was intense and lasted. Nose was intense grapefruit but in the background are some sweet malts (caramel) and some piney hops. Taste is first strong citrus (especially grapefruit), some slick pine, and then the sweetness of the malts - some bready, some caramel. This is is a hop bomb for sure, but incredibly well-balanced. The aftertaste is not mouth puckering bitterness, but a nice bitter edge to a sweet and fruity finish. Mouthfeel is creamy and medium with light carbonation. And warning - there is NO sense of anything CLOSE to 10.5% ABV. All-in-all, this is a world class beer. Even with my very high expectations, there was no disappointment. My wife, who doesn’t like IPA’s liked this. Great beer everyone should get to try. Now if Alpine would only get greedy and start pumping it out in the quantity that would allow it.

Aroma: 7 | Appearance: 9 | Mouthfeel: 8 | Flavor: 10 | Overall: 9

Bottle, home. Excellent beer with lots of sweet malt and lots of hops. This beer pours a mildly hazy orange-gold, perhaps a shade or two darker than your average DIPA. There's very little head and what's there dissipates. The aroma is sweetly hoppy. There's clearly a lot of malt in this beer, but the hops still dominate with a big wildflower aroma with pine resin and tangerines chipping in a touch less. The malt contributes a background caramel sweetness. This is not my favorite style of DIPA. I tend to prefer them dry and bitter. However, Exponential is the best sweet DIPA that I've ever had and the flavor is a success. The key is probably that the hops still dominate the flavor profile. The malt is just a big supporting sweetness. There's still plenty of delicate hop notes and hop bite in the finish. This beer finishes nice and bitter despite the sweetness. The aftertaste is very pleasant and the alcohol is pleasant and warming. I've become a big fan of Alpine in the past few days. I just hope that they start distributing their bottles more regularly to Northern California.

Aroma: 8 | Appearance: 7 | Mouthfeel: 8 | Flavor: 9 | Overall: 9

Bomber from South Bay. Resiny aroma with a strong dose of caramel along with orange peel, grapefruit and some slight alcohol fumes. Amber colored and pours with a pretty nice head for the abv that settles to a thin patchy layer. The flavor is very citrusy with oranges and lemons coming through strong. I pick up a little mango as well. Slick malt underneath all the hops. A sweet bitter sting shows to let you know this is a hefty beer but despite that this remains remarkably drinkable for what it is. Alpine has done a great job at creating a big hoppy beer at 11% that’s not too sweet or alcoholic. High ratings are justified.

Aroma: 8 | Appearance: 8 | Mouthfeel: 8 | Flavor: 9 | Overall: 8

A top of the line DIPA and a welcomed sight at our last tasting. Brought to us in a growler that was just poured a day or two earlier. It's a pleasure to enjoy a beer like this because it reminds you how good a DIPA can be. So many are passed off as this style and they just simply aren't, no matter how good intentions there were to create one. Not only did Alpine succeed, they succeeded on a high level.

The beer poured out of the growler a beautiful orange color, a creamy one-finger thick head with a complex hop attack of tropical fruits, pine resin, citrus peel and marijuana. Full bodied, creamy mouthfeel..no harshness at all. Flavors just explode with hoppy goodness. It's really not for the faint of heart. Juicy tropical fruits combined with the piney power of the hop and the resiny goodness that comes from it just really does cartwheels on the tongue. There's a good bit of sweetness to counter the bitterness in this beer, but make no mistake...the hops are the star of this show and they should be. Highly recommended and a pleasure to drink.

Aroma: 8 | Appearance: 7 | Mouthfeel: 7 | Flavor: 7 | Overall: 7

A well carbonated pour from the growler easily produces a three-finger thick, creamy textured, light tan colored crown of froth. The beer is a lightly orange tinged, full amber color that shows a lightly hop-hazed, orange-copper hue when held up to the light. The aroma is very sticky with hop notes; candied grapefruit, huge lychee, apricot & other tropical fruit notes are quite noticeable even while pouring this brew. A focused sampling of the aroma gets aromatic notes that lean much more towards the herbal / pine side of the spectrum. Though the beer still smells of sticky, sugar preserved hop buds. The sharper side of the hop produces notes of grass, pine sap, some slight chive notes, a huge hemp oil contribution. It is interesting that this was so intensely fruity smelling as I was pouring it, but that a focused inspection of the aroma is much more dominated by concentrated herbal & essential oil components.

Sweet and thick tasting with a ton of residual malt sugars, these are not by any means overwhelming though as this has a huge hop character that easily offsets the malt; in fact the residual malt sugars are not even overly noticeable because of all the hop character. Sharply bitter, with lots of green, astringent hop notes and a finish that tastes like what I would imagine chewing on a fat, juicy, marijuana bud (though there is lots of malt to keep this from becoming over-bearing). Up front and through to the middle some nice, underlying citrus & tropical fruit flavors are found; these contribute flavors of lychee, candied ruby-red-grapefruit, orange-marmalade and peach concentrate. This is clearly dominated by the greener hop flavors; in addition to the piquantly expressive hemp-oil flavor there are notes of chives, mentholated pine, lots of herbal turpenes (rosemary, garlic chive and a touch of sage oil). Thick and chewy, this is approaching a Barleywine in heft, it just retains enough lightness to retain the IPA allusions though. The plethora of hop character also keeps this from every getting sticky or cloying. The malt character is clearly a supporting character, really not noticeable on its own, but it plays a significant role in carrying the hop character.

My second pour of this beer reminds me how very well carbonated this beer is; visually it is quite apparent, but the beer is thick enough that it is not as noticeable in the flavor as one might think, though it does add a certain prickle / lightness to the beer as it flows across the tongue. This beer doesn't seem to take to warming as much as some, the combination of hops and alcohol gets a bit harsh after a bit.

Big, powerful, overbearing, an exercise in self inflicted tongue flagellation, but is it good. It most certainly is, but it is a bit too astringent & hemp-oil dominated for me. There are times when I can enjoy a scathing, tongue scraping, astringently hoppy beer, but most times I like something a bit more drinkable. Definitely a beer for the enthusiastic hop head. I am not sure if I am getting more discriminating or if I am just getting burned out on over-the-top beers, but this is not nearly as enjoyable as I expected. I really do enjoy excessive amounts of hops in a beer, but it has to have a drinkability and finesse that this beer just doesn't quite have. Still this is a good beer, though it is one I really only want a 12 oz serving of (luckily I could share my growler, because there was no way I would finish it on my own).

Aroma: 6 | Appearance: 8 | Mouthfeel: 7 | Flavor: 8 | Overall: 8

Pours a glowing goldish orange. Huge off white head. Floral nose with a big citrusy flavor. One draw back is a herbal bitterness in the finish that just seemed out of place.

Aroma: 8 | Appearance: 10 | Mouthfeel: 8 | Flavor: 9 | Overall: 9

Had this the same night as the special Ballast Point night at O'Brien's. A day or two previously, Tom Nickels' place had something of a competition -- Bear Republic's Racer X vs. Alpine Beer Co.'s new Exponential Hoppiness. And while I was in the distinct minority (four votes vs. 30-something) in preferring the Racer X over this beer, I still have to tip my hat to Pat and the good folks at Alpine for giving me a truely unique taste of the almighty hop!

When I was in Las Vegas last weekend, we would go from the air-conditioned bus or casino to the oppressive Vegas-in-the-Summer heat. It was literally like walking into a wall of heat each and every time. Well, the aroma of this beer is not unlike that -- you feel like you're literally walking into a wall of hoppiness. Does it get much better for a hophead like myself?

You betcha, partner! Like the name implies, this is seemingly exponentially hopped. Or, if I can draw on the computer scientist-geek in me, it's almost as if the size of hop additions added to the boil in binary: 1, 2, 4, 8, etc.... Even if you are a seasoned hophead, this beer can be challenging!

Is there anything to this beer besides hops? No, not really. Enough malt to push it to a rather stealthy 10%ABV, but not nearly enough to achieve even the appearence of balance.

A beer truly in a leauge of it's own. Would I buy this again? Probably. But would I recommend it? I dunno. It's pretty much a-one-beer-and-your-done-for-the-evening type of proposition, unlike Ruination or Dogfish Head 90 Minute IPA. I suspect that this would age nicely if it were bottled and conditioned, but it's a bit "above and beyond" as it stands now. Not the "hop ass-juice" that I was told this was, but certianly way-too unbalanced...

And, BTW. did I mention that it's hoppy? :)

~ 12/6/03 Re-review:
Had more than a few samples of this as the San Diego Strong Ale Fest, for one very good reason -- this was allowed to mellow a bit, and age properly -- improving it's balance a hundred-fold. Way-too drinkable -- especially since I was belching hops for hours afterwards! Scores adjusted accordingly.
//TB

Aroma: 8 | Appearance: 8 | Mouthfeel: 9 | Flavor: 10 | Overall: 8

Deep gold color. Large creamy head. Aroma is hoppy and fruity. A medium bodied double IPA. Malts are nutty and sweet. Hops are piney, grapefruity and oaky. Very nicely balanced. Very smooth. It’s very hoppy, but not nearly as over the top as pure hoppiness. Very smooth. With no alcohol evident at all. Mouthfeel is full and round. Finish is clean and dry. Aftertaste is slightly bitter

Aroma: 6 | Appearance: 8 | Mouthfeel: 7 | Flavor: 6 | Overall: 8

clear golden color, like a pilsener, foamy head, hoppy taste, slightly bitter finish. Had this at Pizza Port's 2003 Strong Ale fest.