Left Hand Midnight Project Oxymoron India Pale Lager

Brewed by Left Hand Brewing Co.
Style: Strong Pale Lager/Imperial Pils
Longmont, Colorado USA

Serve in Dimpled mug, Footed Pilsner, Lager glass, Stein

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draft @ redlight redlight. Citrusy hop aroma. Pours golden blonde with a thin white head. Strong hop flavor, grapefruity with hints of resin and a strong malt background. Solid and easy drinking!

Lucent coper, thin beige head, oily medium body, medium-low carbonation.

Aroma: lots of fresh nobel hops, sweet toasty malt.

Taste: sweet toasted and caramel malts, pungeant earthy nobel hops.

Simple to describe, but interesting to drink. There’s more late addition hop flavor and aroma than is typical with nobel hop varieties, and i like it. Nice balance, few flavors, but a lot of each.

Sampled at the Great American Beer Festival on September 16, 2010. Clear, golden yellow color with a really frothy off-white head. Aroma dominated by hops… really hoppy for such a light-colored beer. Light-bodied, but very fresh with hops owning this beer. Flavor is really great. It’s like it has the strength of a double IPA with the body of a light beer. I don’t know what the ABV of this beer is, but it’s pretty damn good. It has a slightly metallic finish.

Bottle. Head is initially average sized, frothy, off-white, mostly diminishing. Body is medium amber. Aroma is lightly to moderately malty (toasted grain/bread), lightly to moderately hoppy (herbs, resin), with light notes of metal and alcohol. Flavor is moderately sweet, lightly acidic, lightly bitter. Finish is lightly sweet, lightly acidic, moderately bitter. Medium body, velvety/syrupy texture, lively carbonation, lightly alcoholic, slightly metallic. There’s a bit of a metallic twang in this, and it’s not that interesting overall, but it’s certainly drinkable.

Bomber. Copper with a lasting creamy disc of foam. Nose of caramel, spicy dry grass. Flavor is caramel, corn and grass. Medium body is well balanced with a dry finish.

Fresh bomber. The pour yields a crystal clear, deep reddish-copper colored body. A tall head of smooth khaki foam quickly settles to a thin, patchy film. Tattered, feathered ribbons and splotchy, branched flares of lacing seem permanently etched to the glass. Despite its youth, the nose is stale and grainy, wrought with notes of cardboard that seem to be appearing in more and more Terrapin products these days. Searing alcohol, spent caramel, burnt marshmallow, and cheap corn malts really dumb this brew down. For a self -proclaimed "India Pale Lager", hops sure do play second fiddle to the ill-constructed malt base here. Primarily floral, with a lightly peppery profile and a hint of bitter, dried grass, the hops are simply overpowered by the sweet and stale malts. Flavors aren’t any better, as the stale grain, sweet corn, and burnt confectioners sugar again dominate. Buttery diacetyl is present throughout. Hop bitterness is up a bit, as grass moves to the forefront, but that can’t save this mess. The palate is sticky-sweet and cloying, light on carbonation, and overly hot. Not good at all. Just a poorly made product here.

Pours a lightly hazy deeper golden with orange notes and a medium bubbly/creamy white head. Aroma of sweet pilsner malt, great spicy and citrusy noble hop character. Flavor was biscuity, great hop bite and spicy hop flavor profile.

I’ll admit I was a bit confused with the style. With all the German influence on the recipe a Euro style strong pale lager seems about right for the style. Lighter bodied than I thought it ’should’ be, malts and hops are present just not enough to make this a Double IPA. Once again another unique, well done beer by Left Hand Brewing.

Bottle pours a clear amber with a medium off white head with lacing. Scent is caramel sweet. Taste is earthy hops. Different. Not bad.

22oz bomber. Pours copper / orange-brown with a very soft/subtle haze and a medium-thin white head (that leaves lace on the glass). Aroma is grassy hops with a touch of citrus and a touch of sweet grain. Flavor is clean and grainy upfront with a light cereal sweetness, a grainy stretch toward mid-palate, and a firm but balanced bitterness in the finish. The bitterness is grassy, spicy, and clean. Mouthfeel is crisp and medium-full in body. Overall, quite interesting. Lager yeast fermentation and noble hops do a curious yet veyr tasty things to an IPA!