Oh goodie, it's time for another beer review, although one that we unfortunately can't get in Louisiana. I've tried the 120 Minute a couple of times now, first at a little dive bar in San Antonio and again on tap at Hopjacks in Pensacola. Wait... I need to write a Hopjacks post... mental note. Well not long ago I found myself in Delaware and needless to say some Dogfish Head (Facebook - Twitter) was on the menu, and the 120 Minute was out and available. Jay and I picked up plenty, tried one while we were there and the rest made it back to BR for Mandi, beer nerd friends, and a few for myself!
Well... after letting the inebriation from the Delaware trip pass (more on that in a later post...) I decided that Mandi and I needed to break out one of the 120 Minute IPAs and give it a proper review.
I poured into a couple of smaller snifter-style glasses, and noticed immediately that there was very little head on this beer. I wonder if that's a factor of the insane amount of hops that go into this beer? Not that it's a big deal at all, the smaller head is going to take away absolutely nothing from my enjoyment of the rest of this brew.
The first thing on the nose is booze. This is one hell of a boozy beer, but also rich with hops and an underlying malt base that can't be ignored. To get 18% alcohol in a beer and still have it appear hoppy is amazing without using adjuncts to increase the alcohol content.
The taste is more of the same... alcohol, malt, and hops all blend together pretty well all things considered. It's hard to really look at this as an IPA with such a strong abv and so much malt, but it sure is delicious either way. It's one all craft beer drinkers should try at some point in order to cross it off their bucket list.
Mandi and I both enjoyed this one and I have a few more age... hey, it even says on the bottle that it ages well and the bottle never lies, right?
I've really been wanting to try this one fresh. I've had it twice once was a one year old bottle and the other was over four years old. Both times were very interesting and pretty damn good but I'd like to taste the crazy amount of hops in the fresh one.
ReplyDeleteYeah, it's almost certainly more like a barleywine with age... not that there's anything wrong with that.
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