HaandBryggeriet Dobbel Dose IPA

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

Piney and malty sweet aroma and flavor...more so than I prefer but not bad. Dark and cloudy for the style. I still prefer the west coast or other hop bombs to this. Double IPas are for hop fiends after all, but his is not a bad brew.

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

From Central City, in a 500ml bottle. Batch #400. Gave up an insanely large head, a fluffy white creation that fell away to leave nice lacing. Pour was a very cloudy dark gold. Big hop aroma along with some pine in the bouquet, although not a pronounced as a West Coast DIPA. Superior mouthfeel. Flavour had hop, pine, and citrus. Grapefruit bite at the finish. Lots of sediment at the bottom of the bottle, which I happily added to the last pour.

Aroma: 7 | Appearance: 5 | Mouthfeel: 6 | Flavor: 5 | Overall: 7

Cloudy honey brown with a very hard to pour very aggressive crown. Aroma was light and refreshing, orangy lemon with a mild funk, never would have guessed this was a double by the smell, still good. Taste also light and easy drinking. Lemon, mild bitter, clean aftertaste, mild dirt. Is really a double? I can't even taste the high alcohol. Good beer nothing memorable.

Aroma: 9 | Appearance: 6 | Mouthfeel: 8 | Flavor: 7 | Overall: 7

Pours a hazy dark honey-golden, barely transparent, with a fairly thick and fluffy pale orangy-tan head. Aroma is not strong, but it does have decent hops and citrus components, the latter largely sour orange. Flavor is hoppy yet scarcely bitter, with a citrus undertone that is equal parts orange and grapefruit. It is a bit wan but still pleases. Texture is quite fizzy and lively, leaving a subtle but pleasant tingle. Overall, not great but still worthy!

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

Bottled (thanks T.M.). Slightly hazy reddish amber colour with mediumsized fluffy/bubbly beige head. Aroma is dark dry fruits, some sweet malts as well as mild notes of honeyish sweetness and alcohol. Flavour is quite much the same, but also has some slight nutty notes as well as some sweetness like burnt sugar, but not exactly it.

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

Pours a thick, murky copper color with ample, lasting head. The aroma is balanced by style, at least the American standard. I enjoyed the sweet, grainy notes alongside, peppery, herbal hopping. The flavor is rich and also balanced compared to most imperial ipas I have sampled. Finishes sweet. Medium bodied and smooth with gentle carbonation.

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

Sampled from bottle. Pours hazy dark copper with a thick, creamy off-white head. Pleasant citrus, herbal hop aroma with strong dark fruit/caramel notes. Bitter with a bold, bready malt flavor with a hint of licorice. Some flavor hops - peppery/spicy. More dark fruits in the flavor. Full-bodied and smooth. Worth trying.

Aroma: 6 | Appearance: 9 | Mouthfeel: 8 | Flavor: 6 | Overall: 6

Batch 153, Brewed April 2008; Sampled February 2009
A solid, but careful pour produces, three-fingers of pale tan colored froth in my 25cl tulip glass. The beer is an orange tinged, honey color that shows an incredible carbonation and an orange-gold color when held up to the light. The aroma is quite hop focused, but seems to have lots of sweet malt character that accentuates fruity hop aromatics. Notes of candied orange-zest, concentrated tangelo, orange cream candies, essential citrus oil and a touch of herbal character are concentrated at the front of the aroma, while the back end adds notes of toasty, biscuit-like malt and some dusty grain notes.

Not as sweet as I was expecting, though this does have a light sweetness to it. Flavors of alcohol tend to dry this beer out a bit and it has an ample carbonic bite to it as well. The citrus character that was so prominent in the aroma is not nearly as noticeable in the flavor; this is lightly accented by notes of bergamot, a touch of lychee and some orange juice flavors. The bitterness is fairly soft for your Typical double IPA, but does provide a lingering bitterness to this beer. The alcohol also accentuates a grassy, herbal hop character just a bit, with a bit of green, vegetal astringency in the finish. This vegetal note seems to grow as the beer warms up. The body of this brew is definitely on the light side for a 9% abv beer, which is right in line with how I like my Double IPAs.

The flavor is surprisingly un-hoppy considering the aroma of this beer, or perhaps it is better put that the hop character is the most dominant part of the flavor but it comes off as weak and flabby somehow. This is definitely one of those beers that did not live up to the promise of its aroma.

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

500 ml bottle, as HaandBryggeriet Dobbel Dose IPA, courtesy of Cardinal Pub & Bar, Stavanger. Bottle conditioned, unfiltered and unpasteurised. Batch #108, brewed Nov. 07, BB Nov. 09. ABV is 8.5%. Very cloudy orange-brown colour, big off-white head. Nice hoppy aroma, notes of flowers and orange marmalade, a hint of oak too. The flavour is sweet (too sweet) and somewhat alcoholic, with a substantial dominance of hops (as expected from a Double IPA), but not quite as extreme as I feared. Bitter finish. When pouring the last sediment in the glass the beer becomes extremely muddy, but the flavour also becomes more complex and interesting.