Midnight Sun Cohoho Imperial IPA

Brewed by Midnight Sun Brewing Company
Style: Imperial/Double IPA
Anchorage, Alaska USA

Bottle courtesy of Footbalm, the Grand Puba of trading. Pours your standard medium brown IIPA color. Very good head retention. Aroma is dominated by piney hops, as well as the flavor. Only hints of malt. Aftertaste is a bit malty though, like a filmy amber ale taste. Give this a big kick of sweet caramel malt, and the score would jump to at least a 4.

Hugely fruity (pear, apple) aroma with herbal, resinous, American hops and some mild chocolatey notes. Opaque tan-brown with a decent, off-white head that covers persistently with some lacing. Strong grapefruit hop flavour with a pear-like over-all character and fairly sweet supporting malts. Large bitterness suffuses the taste buds and lasts in the after-taste. Medium body with a fairly dry finish and strong carbonation. Snifter glass, allowed to warm from fridge temp. Bottle enjoyed with Claude, MartinT and Rastacouere.

Cloudy copper pour, beautiful color. Gentle full off-white head slowly receds to a sticky cover. Heavy malt aroma unleashing maple and graham cookies components. Mellowed by a good level of sweetness and yeasty undertones yet concentration worthy. Not the most complex, but the hop profile is displayed gracefully, coming out soapy, woody. Pleasant rich caramel maltiness. Almost bready yeast undertones, at times hinting at butter. Diplomatic yet growing bitterness, sand-like, highly earthy, orangey and dry. As other Midnight Sun beers, the carbonation is prominent, though not disturbing unlike in their other brews. It is very well rounded, full bodied, airy and bubbly which seems to bring two sub-effects: A warming and filling sensation and a shorter flavor than it could have. I definitely can’t say it is for the worse on the other hand. Among the pack that closely follows the lead in the world of I2PAs and probably my favorite of the couple of Midnight Suns I’ve tried.

Sweet honey nose, copper color, fluffy sticky head. Apricots in the malt body, sweet hop dryness at end. Heavy chewy body. Different - sweeter than other IIPAs, but it all balances out somehow.

Ruby/mahogany with a foamy white head. Bitter aromas with some honey and herbs. Alcohol as well. Almost a little piney or sprucey. Again, the flavors come out bitter and piney with caramel and toasted malts. Finishes piney.

I can see the headline now: Busy beer label causes seizures in beer geek., and don’t get me started on the tacky salmon reference...damn someone though that was clever.

Oh, you want me to talk about the beer? Sorry. The colour is golden-amber...an attractive golden-amber. Don’t know the intangible that makes it better all the other "golden-amber" beers out there but it is to my eyes a pretty beer. The aroma is spicy, minty and toasty. Overall the character is moderate for style, with the expected citrus and toast notes, but not particularly chewy. Nothing awesome, but quite enjoyable.

Amber body, clear with a large white head. Aroma is citrus with some apple, pear, sweet malts and sprucey hops. Lots of malts upfront but moves quick to the bitterness of the hops.

From the bottle this brew has an very clear amber body with a big white head. Aroma of very piney citrus hops and some sweet caramel malts. The big malt start did well counteracting the massive pine hop bitter finish, but I’m just not very fond of the pine tree hop flavor. Very crisp and bitter trailing finish. Not a bad IIPA, but seven dollars a bottle seems very high.