HeBrew Bittersweet Lennys R.I.P.A

Shmaltz Brewing Company
Brewed at Olde Saratoga Brewing (Mendocino Brewing Co.)
Style: Imperial/Double IPA
San Francisco, California USA

Bomber. Poured an amber color with a frothy almost tan head. Huge hop aroma with a light malt background. The flavor is bitter grapefruit, pine, and caramel but as it warms more and more malts come out. Medium to full body with a bitter aftertaste. Very nice!!!

Pours cloudy brown with a billowy off-white head. Rich aroma of rye, crystal malt, and hops. Big flavor up front, mostly rye and malt. The hops are next, with more pine and resin than citrus. Finish is caramel malt with a hop bite. Love IIPAs and Ryes, this combines the best features of both.

The chosen beer in rememberance of the Jewish stars (#1). We’ll see. Pours a clear dark red with a thin smooth white head. I seem to notice more caramel and fruit notes than heavy hops, which I wouldn’t expect. Kind of barleywinish in that respect. A good aroma nonetheless. Interesting flavor, I do get the rye malts when tasting Lenny; in fact the caramel sweetness just kind of ends and then all of a sudden, you get a somewhat bitter finish. Very interesting palate and unusual to say the least. Overall a better than average beer, although more malty than most in this style, so it seems that it is characterized incorrectly.

Very dark red with cream-colored head. Smell is of alcohol, pine, hops, and caramel. Somewhat syrupy in the mouth. Mild hop and citrus tartness with sweet malt and coffee flavor. Overall the taste was quite complex. The finish is of alcohol and tingles as a mix of caramel and bitterness lingers on the tingling tongue. $7.00 for a bottle was a worthwhile purchase.

Bomber. Pours a dark amber, nice white head, lasts quite a while. Very hoppy. Nice citrus flavor, with some noticable alcohol content, but for 10% it is pretty well masked. Finish is slightly sweet, with a bit of bitter hops.

Pours deep reddish amber, with a nice, lasting off-white head. Very sweet, bready aroma with lots of sticky hops. Extremely full flavor, rich in malt base layered with sticky, resiny hops, woodsy, bourbony notes and a long-lasting dry finish. Full bodied, smooth, warming; moderately carbonated. Seems more than a DIPA...almost into strong ale/barleywine classification. A real treat.

First off, this bottle must have sit for a while. When I popped it, there was barely any compressed CO2 in the bottle. I poured from the 22 oz and there was barely any head. But the first flavor was an utterly smooth, yet very hoppy and rye-ish flavor. Unlike Hop Rod Ale, this one is not in your face. It’s mellow, soft and beautiful. Aging this one it definitely mellows, so that any harshness that might have existed before hand have mellowed and made this into a beautiful 10-11% brew.

bomber. Deep amber/copper with ruby highlights. small to medium off white head. Aroma is lots of citrus, rye, and pine. Taste is citrus, rye, with a slight piney bitterness that last throughout the taste. Alot of caramel and malts are also evident. Full, slick mouthfeel. very nice.