Vinos Rock Hopera Imperial IPA

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

Sampled GABF 2008
This beer has a frothy, tan colored head that sits on top of a pretty dark for an IIPA, brown-amber colored beer. The aroma is quite sticky and sweet with an ample caramelized hop character; aromatic notes of candied ruby-red grapefruit zest, citrusy spruce tips, concentrated bergamot and a nose-tingling herbaceous pine note. This is very aromatically hoppy, but the sweet caramel malts play a huge role too.

The flavor seems to have a bit more caramelized grain character to it than overt sweetness, but that is here too; the malt seems to add a bit of a murky, toasted grain character that comes off as a bit muddled and confused. The hop character is a bit more dominant than the malt, and contributes flavors of grapefruit, candied orange, tangelo and ample lychee. The body of this beer is thick and chewy, so much so that this is definitely a sipping brew. There is lots of lingering hop bitterness to this beer as well as astringent hop flavors that contribute notes of pine and a menthol / herbal note.

This is a bit too malty for my tastes; it is way too focused on crystal malt flavors and is too thick and chewy (really almost a Barleywine in character). Hopheads who can get past the over-abundant crystal malt should find this enjoyable though.