Big Time Hopfest

Brewed by Big Time Brewery
Style: India Pale Ale (IPA)
Seattle, Washington USA

Serve in Shaker, Tulip

send corrections   |   shelftag   |   edit barcodes   |   add pic

Some times I am a man of few words. This beer was pretty good.

On tap at brewery: Really aromatic beer. Green, earthy, grassy and wholesome hop flavors. Sweet caramel malts complemented well. Tasty stuff.

On tap at Big Time in Seattle, WA--Poured a thin amber body with a small white head. Spicy, floral, nutty, creamy nose. Not very exciting for an IPA.

Clear amber with a tight viscous head that lingers. Nice, subtle aroma of spicy hop and cascade tree resins. Super smooth cask brew with pine tree hopflavors and a mild caramel malty sweetness to balance. My favorite beer style to drink cask, and this was a good one.

UPDATED: JUN 20, 2009 Crystal. On tap at the brewery 12/30/05.Pours a pale, slightly cloudy amber with a modest head. The malt stays in the background, showcasing the cops but balancing nicely; the hops themselves offer with a lovely dry bitterness without the strong citrus-and-pine of many of the popular PacNW varieties. The mouthfeel is good, and the beer is superbly drinkable. (As an aside, I’d call this an American Pale Ale rather than an IPA.) 7/3/9/4/17=4.0.

Amarillo. On tap at the brewery 7/22/06. Pours cloudy amber orange with a nice fluffy head. The aroma is divine, a piney, citric wonderment of Amarillo hops. The flavor - well, let’s not pretend that this is a complex or subtle beer. It’s not. It’s hop juice, and I mean than in a good way. This one is plain and simple a showcase for the hops, and with lovely hops like these, that actually works quite well. I pick up a bit too much alcohol and resin in the flavor (and the malts are hiding like scared fieldmice) but the hops come through with more big juicy flavor than bitterness, despite the fact that this is not a particularly sweet IPA. On the whole it works very well, and makes me glad to work just a few blocks from the Big TIme so that I can sample this sort of thing regularly. 9/4/7/3/15=3.8. The batch I sampled 6/18/09 was better rounded, less over the top than my notes indicate about the first go-around -- though some of this may have been that it was on cask.

Mt Rainier. Tap at the brewery 7/4/2007. For me, this was a first encounter with this Hallertau-family hop variety. The aroma is modest but enjoyable; the flavor comes through not powerfully but with a pleasant complexity that compensates for the relatively thin malt backbone of the beer. It’s not at all a pine and orange blast like most of the Big Time IPAs, but rather we get a somewhat resiny, mildly floral, mildly spicy, well-balanced hop flavor that renders it a delicously drinkable beer, lighter in feel than Scarlet Fire or Baghwan’s. Nice! 7/4/8/4/15=3.8

Liberty. Tap at the brewery 12/21/07. Pours a cloudy amber with a nice head and strong lacing. Sweet, gentle nose of candied gummi peach and overripe bartlett pear. While the opening flavor is likewise sweet and soft, orchard juice warmed by gentle candied malt, it quickly turns to a bitter and somewhat astringent finish atop a noticeable diacetyl . The hops close soapy with a bit of grapefruit pith. Spot-on mouthfeel, the carbonation textured but not aggressive. Pretty good, but not among my favorites of their IPAs or even of their their hopfest varieties. 7/3/7/4/14=3.5

Ahtanum. Tap at the brewery 7/16/08. This hop makes for a really nice fruity IPA, on the sweet side but not sticky, just not aggressively bitter. Citrus and amarillo-like tropical fruits/peaches, a hint of wood. I really like this stuff. 8/4/8/4/15 =3.9

Murky red-amber with a foamy white head and nice lacing. Light citrus and pine hops in the nose. Toasted malts. Fruity and sweet aroma. The flavor is a little nutty with a ton of toasted malts. Bitter hops and a lot of citrus and pine hops again. Warm and fruity finish with a ton of fresh hops.

(Draught) Sampled at Big Time Brewpub in Seattle on March 2, 2007. Lasting white head with a deep orange body. Nose is very piney. Not hoppy crisp but malt balanced in a strange way. Short bitter finish. Good stuff.

UPDATED: APR 3, 2006 Draught at the brewpub. Hazy amber. Fruity and sweet with soft mouthfeel. The hops doesn’t provide much flavour, instead it packs a severe, inky punch of late bitterness. Not my favourite beer at this otherwise fantastic brewpub.

(GABF05) Lightly hazed lemon yellow body with white head. Aroma is medium sweet, grapefruit, some pine. Taste is moderately sweet, grapefruit, peach, some pine. Watery light-medium body.

(Draft: Big Time Brewery and Alehouse in Seattle, WA) I’ve liked every single-hop beer featuring Simcoe hops I’ve tried, and it continues with this offering. It’s citrusy, grapefruity, but somewhat mild mannered. Lightly sweet pale malts provide a solid yet gentle base for the hops. Grapefruit really takes ahold of the finish. Similar characteristics in the nose, it’s grapefruity and hoppy, with a lightly sweet maltiness. Seems every bit as bitter as their standard IPA. Hazy amber color is darker than the IPA but the off-white head shows the same fade to a ring, and intricate lacing seems limited to the top part of the glass. Nice tasting beer that does a nice job of showcasing the Simcoe hops, but it doesn’t excite my senses.