Founders Devil Dancer Triple IPA

Brewed by Founders Brewing Company
Style: Imperial/Double IPA
Grand Rapids, Michigan USA

Serve in Snifter, Tulip

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UPDATED: FEB 21, 2005 2004 Great Taste of the Midwest. Dark red-amber and fairly clear body with an off-white creamy head. Interesting caramelly citrus aroma, with some grass in there. Taste has some sweet caramel backed up by a resiny pine hoppiness. May have a slight stale hop feel to it to, as DavidP mentions. Nice resiny/sticky mouthfeel. One of my favorites from the beer festival. (7 / 5 / 8 / 4 / 17). Bottle rating, 2/21/05. Its still good. Its aroma is hoppy (perfume, citrus, pine, you name it) caramel.... taste is HOP SEDUCED caramel. That, plus the alcohol gives it a medicinal, cough drop-like taste. Its pretty good... I agree there doesn’t seem to be much complexity to it. However, it is very balanced, and I think better than a lot of IIPAs. And, I’m noticing that the more you drink, the more you find another hop characteristic.

UPDATED: FEB 16, 2005 Dark amber body with a tan head. Big hoppy aroma, though I thought the hops smelled a little stale, or off, or something. Brown sugar and caramel sweetness is quickly superceded by the very strong grapefruit and pine hops. A well-made if overdone beer.

Updated rating from bottle:
Clear brown-ruby body with sparse carbonation lazily bubbling up. Thick but medium-lived tan head. Hops, hops and more hops hit you as soon as you pour the beer - no need to shove your nose in the glass. Once you get past those you’ll come to a simple caramel malt backing. Aaahh, now i remember drinking this stuff at the Great Taste back in August! Without all the hops this stuff would be retardedly sweet - there’s a strong caramel syrupness up front but it’s quickly acid-washed away by "hop burn". I’d say the hops are piney, citrusy and definitely oily resinous. Gin in the finish. It’s drinkable, appealing to beer geeks, a novelty to try, but ultimately not that great.

UPDATED: FEB 2, 2005 rerate, bottled version after having it on draft on the first release. (and also with a fresh palate). HUGE aroma of hops, smells even hoppier than dogfish’s 90 minute or 120 minute. plenty of caramel malt that tries to offset all the bitterness (which would explain the 13%), but i don’t think any amount of malt could make up for all those hops. very, very intense.

2004 draft, MSBF. intense aroma of hops and almost candy-like. good amber appearance, lots of hops and malt going into this beer. very intense.

Draft at 2004 MBG Summer Festival. Poured a very, very small tan head with fine-small sized bubbles that mostly diminished. Transparent, uncarbonated and a brown hue. Malty, hoppy and sweet aroma. The taste was sweet and hoppy. Tingly mouthfeel, medium bodied and sparse lacing.

Michigan Brewers Guild Summer Beer Festival Saturday July 24, 2004. This draft brew poured from a cask conditioned wooden keg was opened specially for the Fest. It formed a small head of finely sized mostly diminishing off-white colored bubbles. The body was transparent uncarbonated and dark brown in color. The medium strength caramel hop aroma was very pleasant. The mouth feel was very tingly and hoppy with a lingering hoppy. The flavor contained good notes of caramel and hops.

UPDATED: JUL 30, 2004 Burnt apricot. Compact light tan collar of foam. Barleywine-esque aroma with plummy malts, earthy hops, and medicine. Dashes of pine, alcohol, honeydew, and candied malt. Very sweet. Sits with a soft thickness on the tongue. Dense carbonation with light pinpricks. Starts with big piney hops and tangy/grassy herbs, which pack a stingingly spicy bitterness, but with a sufficient malt backing to withstand the palate-numbing alpha acids. Earthy nuances from the peppery hops and sweet malts briefly quiet the defiant bitterness. Alcohol and rich malt flavors blend to create a drying effect toward the finish with minty alcohol and cedar. Hints of lemon rind impart more bitterness while the brandyish alcohol warms the face. Ends with restrained hop flavors, yet with an eternal piney hop sting and sloppily masked (minty) alcohol, which clashes with the pine. Leathery malts linger and amplify the astringency. This was a sound effort, but it crosses the very fine line which separates Double IPA from Barleywine. Just too sweet and lacking style and finesse, let alone bright hop flavors. Thanks, hopsrus.

On tap at the ’04 Michigan Brewers’ Guild Summer Beer Festival. Deep amber color with a foamy orange head. Tons of toffee, caramel and raw cookie dough sweetness with pineapple upsidedown cake and candied grapefruit peel flavors. Long lingering bitterness that just left me smiling. Delicious.

Reddish brown brew with no head. Toffeeish nose. Thick heavy body. Huge malty brew that is barely balanced by an outrageous amount of hops. This beer is a monster.Thanks to hopsrus for the oppurtunity to try this!

this is a very well done Imperial IPA. Thanks hopsrus. The color is bronze, a bit unusual for an IIPA, but the flavor is nice & citric hoppy. THe finish is smooth, with a nice malty balance. Well crafted

Thanks Hopsrus!!! Dark bronze with a lofty head. Giant hoppy nose of citrus rind & alcohol. Nice malt backbone is sweet and slight;y caramelly, but this is all about the hops, huge and firey alcohol is held at bay by the monster hop burst at the finish. Hopheads rejoice!!!