Boulevard Double Wide IPA

Brewed by Boulevard Brewing Company
Style: Imperial/Double IPA
Kansas City, Missouri USA

Bottle, batch D8121. Pours almost red with some red orange edges. A bit cloudy with a frothy white head. Nice sweet floral aromas. Taste has a nice sweetness to it. Some good citrus (a late lemon bite), some pine too, vague hints of caramel, Definitely astringent and a good little bitter finish. Tasty!

Tasty and sticky-bitter ale that barely avoids overkill and even manages to be refreshing despite its strength. The 75 cL pours reddish-amber with tall, cream-colored, lacy head. Smells like fruity, woody hops, with grapefruit and fruit punch notes in there. Very juicy, fruity hop flavor that coats the tongue and dries out. I’d love to find some of this on tap.

Pours copper. Nose is citrus hops, grapefruit, and sweet caramel. Flavor is much the same with some thinner characteristics. Drinkable none the less.

quite a creamy version of the style--and it looks almost like a quad, with such a nice and rocky tan head; pine, tropical fruits and peels, smooth malt backing with sharp hops gives an interesting paradox for an interesting beer that is both calm and sweet, and intense and bitter--good balance, and ironically, wish it had less IBUs.

Big, brutal, and powerful. This is a hop loaded monster with thick syrupy caramel malts to add some balance though it still favors the power of the hop. Lots of fruit hop flavors with some alcohol burn. A cross between Great Divide Hercules and Boulevard’s Single Wide.

Pour: 750 mL champagne style bottle to pint glass. Absurdly dark color for an IPA; it’s a ruddy murky muddy brown shade with a large fluffy head of a white peach flesh hue. Excellent retention and thick lacing.

Nose: Very very sweet aroma. Sappy caramel and real maple syrup, with candy apple, grapefruit rind, and pineapple.

Mouth: Sticky caramel is the first thing to hit the tongue, along with a candied pineapple hoppiness. Midpalate is muddled with bready and hoppy notes that struggle to shine but neither succeed. Finish evolves slowly, at first buttered toast (?!) and finally a decent lingering bitterness without much astringency. I can feel the 8.5 but I can’t taste it. Mouthfeel is very very effervescent, in fact overly so. It’s hard to drink without immediately burping, but after some rigorous glass-swirling and a bit of patience, it becomes more tolerable.

Verdict: I like my IPAs and DIPAs (this beer seems to be somewhere between IPA and an Imperial Red) to be 1) dry, 2) hop-centric, and 3) bitter. This beer is sticky, malty, and only a little bitter. It’s a tolerable beer and it doesn’t taste bad by any means, but it’s a departure from my stylistic ideal.

Pours a hazy orange copper with a thick off white head. Aroma is grapefruit-apricot hop, some pine tones. Underlying sweet caramel and toast. Flavour was firm malt body with a medium citrus (apricot/grapefruit) hop. Finishes nice and clean. I thought that the alc blended well.

Ahhh... held this one a little too long. You could still taste the potential, but it was a little sweet. Still a strong flavor, with a bit of grassiness, but the hops just weren’t right. Bummer.