Blue Moon Pine In The Neck

Brewed by Coors Brewing Company (MillerCoors)
Style: Imperial/Double IPA
Golden, Colorado USA

Serve in Shaker, Snifter

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Bomber. Pours clear copper with a medium to large cream-colored head with great retention; leaves some near-perfect sheeting lacework. Aroma is catty, doughy, piney, cotton candy. Taste is mostly bitter with some sweet maltiness rounding things out. Has a slight mineral quality in flavor. Mouthfeel is creamy, body medium to full. Wow, I am impressed. A big brewer made a beer and didn’t even seem to attempt to please their mindless core audience with watered down imitation. In a blind tasting, this would never ever be suspected as being a Coors product. This tastes as craft as the one-room brewer down the street. There’s a part of me that rejoices when the big guys get things right and make a good beer. It makes me think the tides are turning in favor of real flavorful beer. There’s an equal part of me that is a little disgusted that a giant company like this is infringing on much smaller brewers’ turf, taking money right out of their hands with their giant ad campaigns and endless amounts of cash. At the moment, though, I’d like to ignore all that and just enjoy this well-made beer.

Clear orange amber with a bright white head and nice lace. Pine and grapefruit on the nose, with hints of honey and black pepper. Flavors are similar, wiht a rich malty backbone supporting bright piney hops bitterness. Medium body, slightly thin but creamy mouthfeel, generous carbonation, and a wonderful piney finish.

pours a clear dark amber with a very thin off-white head, and a little lacing. smell is faint, caramel, and some citrus. taste is a little thin yet oily, caramel, malt, hops, some pine, and lots of citrus as it sits. ends bitter and somewhat an oily feel in the mouth.

Bottle. Rich amber beer with a cream head. Pine and grapefruit aroma. Pine and grapefruit flavor. Medium bodied. Good bitterness. Grapefruit and pine linger with some earthiness.

Toasted sugar, caramel and cinnamon aromas with some pine notes. Deep copper with a crimson tint. Bitter hop bite upfront which quickly fades into some fairly dark caramel, molasses, maple syrup and brown sugar malt base. Overall, this is pretty interesting, pretty dark and thick flavors for an IPA. Nice and drinkable.

22 oz. bottle- Pours clear amber with a one finger head. Aroma is pine hops, sweet malt and citrus. The taste is resinous pine, nice balanced bitter, there is some caramel in there, which I usually hate in IPA’s, but this blends with the beer pretty well, I do detect some Belgian flavors as well. I can’t say if this is the best Blue Moon beer I have had, that would require research that I don’t feel like doing right now, but this is pretty tasty.

From a bomber. Poured a clear gold with an robust off-white head with good retentions. Nose is of sweet caramel malts, some citrus and pine hops, and juniper Medium in body with a smooth clean mouthfeel. The flavor is a rush of the aromas with the juniper very present, and the citrus hops joined by pine .Finishes bitter and dry. Really nice beer and shows the big guys can make good beer when they want to. I wonder what this bodes for the future of the craft brew industry.

Tap @ Black Bottle. Pours a fairly clear amber appearance with a khaki head. Slight vegetal/celery, piney, grapefruity aroma. Flavor has no notice of the celery note and is fairly pleasant with pretty rich spicy, piney hops and some citrus. Not bad.

Draft to taster. Looks solid; a fairly transparent slightly burnt-orange with ample foamy off-white head that dissipates slowly. Smells and tastes hoppy with a malty backbone; I get very little of the juniper berries though. Average on the palate. My expectations were exceeded.

On tap. I’ll admit this was the last beer of a long night, but it seemed much better than a Blue Moon IIPA should be. Clear amber color with a thin off white head that left sheets of lacing on the glass. Sweet hop resin nose. Flavors of tropical fruit starburst, pine and grapefruits. Big hoppy finish.