5 AROMA 10/10 APPEARANCE 5/5 TASTE 10/10 PALATE 5/5 OVERALL 20/20
Love this beer. Great pine aroma and crisp taste. 7.85% adv. You get just a slight pine taste.
4.9 AROMA 10/10 APPEARANCE 5/5 TASTE 10/10 PALATE 5/5 OVERALL 19/20
Well for me this was just below Pliny the Elder that I got the chance to guzzle on tap in Estes Park. Didn’t suck that they had Russian River Barrel-Aged Sours way below retail. ... Anyways. This was Mind-Blowingly good and nearly faultless. Huge apricot, mango, coconut, pinesol, lemongrass, basil and lemon oil. It’s just a ridiculous beer out of the blue. Made me open a Rate Beer account.
4.8 AROMA 10/10 APPEARANCE 5/5 TASTE 10/10 PALATE 5/5 OVERALL 18/20
Awesome beer. Explodes with fruity citrus flavor. Has a strong malt backbone to meet the delicious hops.
4.7 AROMA 9/10 APPEARANCE 5/5 TASTE 9/10 PALATE 5/5 OVERALL 19/20
I enjoyed this beer in place of the Brown Shugga, it has an amazing hop character! It almost punches you in the face with citrus!
4.7 AROMA 10/10 APPEARANCE 5/5 TASTE 9/10 PALATE 4/5 OVERALL 19/20
Oustanding IPA. The hop aromas are amazing. The taste is excellent. The only reason I docked it was because I think that it was not as clean and crisp of a taste as other IPAs that I’ve had. Would definitely recommend.
4.7 AROMA 10/10 APPEARANCE 4/5 TASTE 10/10 PALATE 4/5 OVERALL 19/20
Smells delicious. Better than poontang. Woody flowers in a cask. Come on flow wit me. This one is light golden but resinous in color. Use your imagination. If I may bastardize the words of my bartendress, "It tastes like every other Lagunitas beer ever made!" Either way I love it. And I pray, not hope, that you flowerhounds at Lagunitas fuck up more often.
4.7 AROMA 10/10 APPEARANCE 5/5 TASTE 9/10 PALATE 5/5 OVERALL 18/20
I appreciate breweries with a sense of humor, whether subtle or obvious and in the case of Lagunitas Sucks Holiday Ale it’s clear they were going for irony of Orwellian proportions. It most definitely does not suck, in fact it’s close to absolute perfection. A beer with amazing, delicious taste, smooth drinkability and is very versatile. The only thing that sucks about this beer is that it’s not a year-round offering.
I poured a 12oz bottle into a tulip glass.
Appearance: Bright orange color with only slight haze; some carbonation bubbles visible. Forms a large, bright white, frothy head which retains and laces beautifully.
Smell: Magnificent bouquet of fleshy tropical fruits (i.e. mango, papaya, guava, passion fruit); noticeable sweet candy-like aroma too plus organic flowers. Extremely inviting.
Taste: Sometimes you know a beer is great when you drink it quickly because you enjoy it so much. I drank Lagunitas Sucks Holiday Ale in about five minutes because it was so delectable. The palate matches the nose perfectly: a strong, delightful and delicious palate of tropical fruit, candy sweetness and prominent hop bitterness that doesn’t overwhelm. It’s akin to tropical fruit juice mixed with hops and Spree candy.
The palate begins with a sharp, somewhat dry hop bitterness. Then the fruit flavors of grapefruit, passion fruit, guava, et al come rushing in. It’s a wonderful combination of hop bitterness and hop-derived fruitiness. I’m guessing this beer was made with Citra and Amarillo hops. I get a strong orange character which imparts some tartness, but not acidity. There’s noticeable sweetness too, like fruit-flavored sucker candy and it finishes with just a bit of resin or pine on the back end. The hops linger on the tongue and are rather dry, but so do the fruit flavors. A very pleasant sensation all around.
Drinkability: This is a beer that rides that fine line between single and double IPA in terms of robustness and complexity of palate. The hops are the star of the show, as it is quite bitter, but its bitterness reading seems a little low at 63.21 IBUs. The ABV, however, seems a bit high at 7.85%. It doesn’t have the bulk or density of a beer that strong and there’s no alcohol presence whatsoever. The delicious taste is made even better by the fact the beer feels so comfortable in the mouth and goes down so smoothly. A full-bodied palate for sure, yet it doesn’t feel thick or sticky. Lagunitas Sucks Holiday Ale is versatile, too, as it would be ideal for spicy food pairings, but its tasty enough to enjoy as a dessert. When’s the last time you could say that about an IPA?!
4.7 AROMA 10/10 APPEARANCE 4/5 TASTE 10/10 PALATE 5/5 OVERALL 18/20
The only way I can explain this beer is a IPA mixed with holiday spices that is blended to perfection
4.7 AROMA 9/10 APPEARANCE 5/5 TASTE 9/10 PALATE 5/5 OVERALL 19/20
Pours rich golden with a tiny white head. Smells piney, resinous, and explodes with citrus. Taste is quite bitter, but not too much so, and has some citrus and pine flavors with hints of a cereal like graininess. Medium-bodied with a slick texture and mild mouth-carbonation, Lagunitas Sucks Holiday Ale finishes with some lingering soft bitterness.
4.7 AROMA 10/10 APPEARANCE 4/5 TASTE 10/10 PALATE 4/5 OVERALL 19/20
UPDATED: DEC 11, 2011 Bottle with Simon, this beer is not an American Strong, it is the one of the juiciest, most resinous, funky hopped out beers on the market. I wish Lagunitas could mess up their beers more often if this is going to be the result. Grapefruit, Oily pine, tangerine, and other citrus aromas dominate the nose. The flavor is balanced, full of dry hops, and finishes like a dream. Amazing double IPA from Lagunitas.
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