Founders Devil Dancer Triple IPA

Thanks Dennis !!!! Pours Orange with a 2 finger of tan head. Citrus and Floral notes. Wow, Hop Explosion, felt it all the way down to my chest!! But still wasn’t to overwhelming somehow. Tatste citrusy, and hides the 13% very well. Overall quite complex and very tasty!

Dark mahogany pour with a ruby tint. Minimal off-white head. Powerful piney hop aroma, brown sugar and caramel background. Note of apple. Flavor has a juicy grapefruit body, and a hint of sour apple. Lasting dry bitterness in the aftertaste. Fair amount of alcohol warming. Some caramel malts coming out in the flavor as it warms. Medium oily mouthfeel with soft carbonation.

Founders Devil Dancer Triple IPA 12 oz bottle Brewed 05/06 (?), tangoed with 10/06. Revisited 06/07 with the 07 version (hiked up the palate score and better stronger crisper hops perhaps due to a fresher batch? when do these usually come out?). Medium pour in a tulip glass. Poured dark copper with a small yellowish light brown frothy somewhat lasting head with tiny lacing. Smelt of strong pineapple, cedar, grapefruit rinds, pine trees and sweet tree sap with light caramel sub-tones. Taste was upfront moderate bitter spruce with faint sweet pineapple and citrus followed by a harsh resiny and perfumey bitterness with some wet leaves/earthy tone on a ridiculously long bitter finish. Mouthfeel was medium to full bodied, syrupy, lightly effervescent, strong, strong alcoholic warmth and harsh astringency. Overall, more of a Mars Pale Ale than India Pale Ale, a beer hopped to last days on the palate or years on the shelf. Perfect beer for the hophead. My tongue is bleeding, I must go.

Thanks to sprinkle for this sweet nectar. poured a hazy dark orange with aromas of...you guessed it, hops! citrus, floral, pine all backed up by a sweet malty backbone. delicious smooth taste, the 13% ABV only hits you as it warms your throat on the way down. didn’t taste like 200+ ibus, but still fabulous all the same. i need to get some more of these!

Thanks to OhioDad for this one. The aroma alone packs a punch. Massive hops in the aroma. Because of the high alc % it seems to have a barleywine bite. There is almost an instant warming in the throat and belly as this one goes down. I will be working on this one for the next 1/2 hour.

This one grabs you. Very overpowering hops, but still found it drinkable and balanced with the malts just as strong. Sure wouldn’t drink more than one or two in a sitting. The sweetness and high alcohol content battle with the malts and hops to try and balance this delight.

Thanks to Iowaherkeye for sending this gem in a trade. I’m starting to get the hang of these self-proclaimed triple IPA’s. It’s an interesting category of beer indeed. This beer pours rather dark for an IIPA or even a triple, if you want to recognize that as a seperate style. The liquid is dark mahogany, visually thick and viscous with a lasting tannish head. Aroma = pummeling blast of grapefruit/pine. Underneath this attack of bitterness is a dry, vinous bittersweetness with a boquet of dark fruits and figs. Generally I think "triple IPA’s" are just too malty to really let the hops come out, even though ridiculous amounts are infused. This is no exception, while bright notes of citrus and pine are quite evident to say the least, they lose a little definition and apparent intensity due to the giant, sticky foundation of toffee, herbs, raisins, and bittersweet earthy notes. This isn’t necessarily a negative, it just requires a change of mindset in the IIPA category to achieve better appreciation from the taster. The finish lingers forever on notes of drying pine and raisins. Despite the staggering intensity of Devil Dancer, everything is balanced excellently and the abv is only is detected as some warmth in the back of the palate. After taking a good twenty minutes or so to finish this, the snifter was still left with walls of lacing.
May 10, 2008]
Bottle. Pours semi-cloudy dark red small tan head. Nose is especially hoppy, but not really as defined as I’d like my IIPA’s to be. Still, it’s nice. Most of the bitter aroma is in the form of herbs, peppers, pine, maybe a bit of garlic. Sweetness is present mostly in the form of fruitiness. Palate is semi-heavy and suits the flavor profile quite well. Bitterness is definitely here but again is very herbal and vegetal without any heavy citrus. I think the sweet character present is close to that of a barleywine, exhibiting characteristics like toffee, earth, and even some berries. This is pretty interesting. It pulls off the mythical triple IPA idea pretty well. I think I prefer a hoppier double IPA though.

The aroma on this beer is ALL hops with some sweet candied sugar (maybe the malt sweetness?) smells coming through as well. The hop aroma on this beer is great! The apperance is copper orange when held up to light, and the head is a creamy toffee color that surpsingly stuck around for qute a while with the beer being 13%. the taste is a little overpowering, and while the extreme bitterness is welcome, I dont like the way it melds with the very thick mouth coating palate. Its a good beer overall, just maybe a little too demanding on the taste buds, but I guess that should be expected for a triple ipa that comes in sooo strong in regards to the alcohol. Overall another good beer from Founders.