Arcadia Hop Rocket 11th Anniversary Ale

Brewed by Arcadia Brewing Company
Style: Imperial/Double IPA
Battle Creek, Michigan USA

Duane shared a bottle of this with me. Thanks! Hazy orange pour with a smallish white head. Piney hop aroma with some slight malty sweetness lingering around as well. There was more hop bitterness than hop flavor in this one and I thought that detracted from the overall drinking experience. Medium-thin palate that lacked the malt backbone needed to round out the intense hop bitterness. Tasty beer, just a bit one-dimensional.

On draft at Grey Lodge Pub. Poured orange with white head. Sweet citrus flavor with a crisp, bitter finish.

Bottle: Pungent grapefruit hop aroma, lively orange body, and smells of earthy garden. A little more bitter than I expected, pine throughout, was expecting a little more grapefruit taste. A little malty for such an intense hop aroma.

12oz Bottle 9% 111 IBU Got this as an extra in a recent trade with Hoppymeal, thanks a bunch Derek! Hop Rocket enters my pint glass a burnished copper and appears slightly hazy from the bottle conditioning. A clean white two finger creamy head grew on the pour and eventually fell to a solid crown leaving lines of lacing on it’s way down. I was teetering between a 4-4.5 on the smell but after repeated inhalings I have to go with the higher rating. There’s a strong caramel maltiness that makes up a respectable canvas for the showcase that is hoppiness. The hops bring an enjoyable candy like apricot sweetness that meets up with a big resinous quality. I really dig IIPAs that have this kind of hop combo. The flavor follows suit. Big hoppiness throughout but enough caramel maltiness to keep things from running wild. Surprisingly there’s not a lot of bitterness like I was expecting from the aroma. Like I said earlier this is the hop combo I really appreciate in IPAs or IIPAs. Arcadia did a great job with the mouthfeel of this beer. Medium bodied and incredibly silky. There isn’t a hint of stickyness like I find in so many other examples. This is a dangerous drinker to be sure. Weighing in at 9% and without a trace of alcohol you could get in trouble with this beer. It drinks more like an IPA than a IIPA. This is my favorite from Arcadia so far. A surprisingly drinkable IIPA with a a great hop presence. I noticed this is their 11th anniversary brewing, I hope it’s made into a year round offering because I know I’d pick it up. Thanks Derek! 2/8/08

Something in the aroma I can’t pinpoint. Some mix with the pine and nutty, toasted malt. It’s not a great undefined flavor. Almost a little sour.

Taster at The Mondial de la biere09 in Montreal. The color is a hazy amber with a thin beige head. Th aroma is hoopy but not very strong. The taste is also of hops, pine fruits and to finish vegy. The bitterness was weak.

Pours a cloudy, glowing orange color. Huge puffy head. Glows bright from the inside like primordial amber. The aroma is a big, bold flowery hop. Notes of spicy orange peel and tangerine. (It uses Summit hops, which is one of the few beers I’ve had that uses them.) Has a rich, rye-like base in the aroma. It’s sweet and estery and magnificent. Unreal. The taste is sweet tangerine and orange with a hint of grapefruit. It’s like a rich, bready base with a kind of citrusy (Five Alive?) flavor on top. But the malt is dark like a bitter rye bread. Just this side of perfect. The feel is creamy and yet oily like an Imperial Stout or a barleywine. It’s substantial and doesn’t let you forget it’s there. This is a goddamn fantastic beer. A masterpiece.

Bottle. This is a beautiful orange amber in the glass with a one and a half inch, foamy off white head. The head is really creamy and dense looking. The aromas are very strong, plenty of fresh pink grapefruit, orange, lemon, pine. There’s a fair bit of carbonation coming up from the centre of the glass. The mouthfeel is medium in body, a bit oily. Initially there is a lot of fruit in the flavour: tropical fruits, passion fruit, pineapple, mango, citrus fruits. Hop bitterness comes fairly quickly with some bready malt and caramel, but the finish really has none of the beer’s earlier complexities.