Hoppy Face Amber Ale

Brewed by Hoppy Brewing Company
Style: India Pale Ale (IPA)
Sacramento, California USA

Serve in Shaker, Tulip

Bottle in Denver. Clear amber - white head. Knækbrød - swedish flatbread, hoppy, nice malty, sharpness, soapy, prape fruity. Unbalanced.

As good as this looks, it never quite lives up to its appearance. Very astringent, resiny, piney hop essence that dominates the drink. Small malt backbone, somewhat soapy and thin. Nice bready finish but the grapefruit and astringent sharp hops are not well balanced and do not bring the drink together.

This is too hoppy, grapefruity-bitter, and unbalanced, but has some good flavours underneath. It is copper with a medium, light tan head that slowly shrinks to a permanent thin head and even rings of thin lace. The aromas is bread, caramel, grapefruit, pine, dust, pretty nice a d bit like Lagunitas Censored. The taste is quite bitter, with lemon and grapefruit pulp, hints of pine, sweet caramel, and grain. There are good flavours, but it’s far too dominated by bitter citrus pulp character, drying, and unbalanced. In a way it resembles Bear Republic Red Rocket, but without the good balance of flaovurs and sweetness and bitterness, being far too off balance as described. Perhaps that’s because it’s classed as an IPA, something I did not relaize until coming here to review it. Anyway, it certainly has IPA qualities.

Sampled at the Savor DC event. Rosy, orange transparent body with zero head. Slight citrus aroma. Fairly strong malt flavor with some orange citrus hints. Clean, crisp finish. Forgettable.

Flavors in this amber are muddy and indistinct. Short finish and a rough, grainy palate.

Draft sample pours clear amber, darker than it should be but I guess they call it amber because of color, even though the hop bill and bitterness makes this an IPA. The nose is wet and oily c-note hops, and the flavor is wet, oily and twangy hop oil extract, but the body is disappointingly thin and bland, which kind of kills the whole experience.

I can honestly say that I’m pretty forgiving when it comes to bad beer. Hell, bad beer is still beer right? Well, this might just be the epitome of bad beer. Either that or beer that has gone bad. Either way, it’s a f’n crime to sell people shit like this. If someone walks into a BevMo and pulls this off the shelf and decides that THIS is going to be THAT microbeer they try for the first time....ugh...it could get real ugly, quick.

The beer pours out this diarhea brown color with these huge floatie/chunk looking things with no head at all. I mean seriously, it looked like something you’d see in your toilet the morning after a bad case of Taco Bell. It smelled of vomit and cheese. This has to be an old bottle. Professional brewers just don’t do this...do they? Flavor was of moldy, rancid cheese and stomache bile. The mere thought of this beer turns my stomach a bit actually. It’s been over 24 hrs since I had it and I might never forget how awful this was.

Bomber from Bottle Barn; Nose of pine and light floral hops; lightly hazed orange with a medium yellow head; flavor of hop bitternesswith pine and a tiny bit of caramel; finish is hop bitterness.