t Smisje Dubbel IPA

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

Bottle: Poured a cloudy dirty beige color ale with a large foamy head with perfect retention and great lacing. Aroma of hops is quite citrusy with a nice Belgian malt backbone and some yeasty notes. Taste is more hoppy then I had anticipated with more West Coast style hops then expected and a nice bready malt backbone with a yeasty finish. Body is quite full with great carbonation and no signs of the alcohol. Interesting take on the style.

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

This is carbonated enough that this beer spits up a ton of sediment from the bottom of the glass to cloud up what started a clear beer. A careful pour still sees me with five-fingers of (including a full finger above the rim of my 25l tulip glass) frothy, off-white head. The beer is a deeply murky, honey color that shows an opaque, yellow gold color when held up to the light. The aroma smells of tropical fruit, lychee, apricot, candied tangelo peel and a bunch of fermentation character. Earthy aromatics, musty black pepper, an almost coriander note, some peat like smokiness, musty biscuit notes and a general spicy phenolic character (including a bit of clove). As this warms up it almost picks up some woody, almost rosemary like notes to it towards the finish. The hop character is definitely dominant, but the fermentation character adds a lot of complexity and a nice backdrop to the hop aromatics.

Effervescent and prickly from the carbonation, the beer has a definite sweetness to it that is much a product of the fruity hops used as from residual sweetness. This beer actually is quite light, surprisingly so for its strength, but it is perfect for something with India Pale Ale on the label (actually even light for your average regular IPA). The flavor sees a big hit of hop flavors throughout; up front are notes of lychee, ripe apricot, sweet tropical fruit and super ripe tangelo lead into a touch of herbal and pine like flavors towards the middle and finish. There is also a fair amount of bitterness to this beer, but it is easy to overlook with all the other flavors going on. This has lots of yeast-driven spiciness to it; persistently phenolic with some tongue numbing turpenes and clove, there is also a nice pepper note here, and earthy, musty, almost coriander spiciness towards the finish. At times this has quite a bit of herbal character that is accentuated by both hop and fermentation components. As the beer warms up the phenolics and clove start to give the hops a run for their money though not quite.

My second pour is even murkier than the first, it doesn’t seem to affect the flavor too much though; perhaps adding a touch of yeast bite. This has an amazing fresh hop character to it, I was expecting this to be a little old and not nearly as hoppy as this still is.

The head is near perfect with lots of dense froth that slowly recedes with lots of lacing and forming of interesting structures; if the beer wasn’t so murky it would be visually stunning. This really hides the alcohol quite well. I like how the hop character mixes with the woody, earthy, peppery spice notes. Quite the dynamic beer, I am really enjoying this; it drinks way too easily though as I could easily (and dangerously) knock back a 750ml bottle of this, even still I am a bit disappointed I only have a 330ml bottle.

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

Pours out in a cloudy golden colour with a rich lasting white foam. Yeasty, spicy Belgian aroma packed with banana and sweet oranges with a stinging peppery undertone. Flavour wise; here comes the hops of orange-peels and wet grass, hints of pepper. Mouth drying mouthfeel. Bitter warming and yeasty finish of orange-peels, pepper, grass, banana and alcohol.

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

Bottled. Orange to hazy nutbrown colour with mediumsized white head. Aroma is yeast, fruits and barnyard. Flavour is freshly cut grass and some alcohol. Also a lot of yeast and caramel. Most likely the strangest Double IPA I have ever had.