Heavy Seas Loose Cannon Hop3 (Oak Aged)

Brewed by Heavy Seas Brewing Company
Style: India Pale Ale (IPA)
Baltimore, Maryland USA

Serve in Shaker, Tulip

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Sampled on cask at the NoVa Summer Beer Fest in Leesburg, VA on 6/25/11. Pours a hazy orange color with a large frothy head. Good head retention and lacing. Aroma of floral, tropical and herbal hop notes. The taste is floral and tropical hop notes, peppery wood notes and caramel. Medium bodied.

Sampled at 4th NoVA Summer Brewfest; cask. Pours hazy orange with a medium, fizzy white head, medium retention with light lacing. Aroma is average malt (straw, caramel, biscuit), heavy hops (floral, citrus, fruity), and average esters (fruity) with notes of oak and apricot. Flavor is sweet malt and fruity hops. Medium body and carbonation, low warmth with a dry finish.

Cask at Redlight Redlight. This is a special, cask conditioned version of Loose Cannon that was dry hopped and aged on virgin Maryland white oak. The pour yields a lightly hazy, fiery orange-amber body with a small cap of fat-bubbled, off-white froth. There is no true lacing to speak of, typical of a cask ale. Aromas are bright and hoppy, focused on citrus rind oils and floral citrus blossoms. Grapefruit and orange stand out most, but there is perhaps a touch of pine deep within. Underlying malts are toffee based, touching also on bread, and they pick up quite a bit of the sweet white oak. It’s actually very reminiscent of Cigar City’s White Oak Jai Alai, only probably not as full flavored. The palate, like the Black Cannon before it, doesn’t really suit the cask conditioning. It comes across as lifeless and a little thin, definitely missing some carbonation that could help it out a good deal. Overall, it’s a pretty nice brew, but it failed to truly excite.