Millstream Hop² Double IPA

Brewed by Millstream Brewing Company
Style: Imperial/Double IPA
Amana, Iowa USA

Serve in Shaker, Snifter

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Bottle into glass.. nicr strong pleasant aroma..taste is very smooth and essy drinking..

12oz bottle-tight foamy lt tan-amber. A-pineapple/resin, sweet med malt-caramel. T-pineapple/resin hops, sweet med malt-caramel.

Pours hazy brown with pretty good head, great lacing, and lots of floating sediment. Aroma is sweet malts, brown sugar, caramel, a touch of roast and not much hops. Taste is similar to the aroma. There certainly are hops present, but they take a back seat, which is unexpected for a DIPA. This feels like more of a mild barleywine, and independent of a style label this is not a bad beer at all. Its overall rating is poor because it’s not a good DIPA. However, it’s a decent barleywine! A little dry in the finish, but not bad.

12oz bottle courtesy of Pepsiedcan and IOWA. Pours a hazy amber with little to no head. Aromas of caramel, rat poison. Taste is similar - bitter cyanide pills followed by a whole lotta guano. Whoa! There’s some sugar in there too. I’m pretty impressed by how bad this offering is. I’d rather be shot gunning malt liquor. In fact, there’s a whole lotta other things I’d rather be doing right now. I would count manual labor as one of them. Scroll past this garbage juice at all costs. I’m not sure if I can finish the glass...

Bottle. Pours a dark amber/toffee color. Aroma is hops. This beer lacks almost everything I look for in a double IPA. Hop flavor is lacking, too much malt and just not very good at all. Awesome bottle cap though, will look nice on the table I am making.

Bottle. Murky orange amber pour with a cream head. Toffee and caramel, very little hop bite, and the carbonation is too low. Flat and not too interesting.

Bottled. Poured deep orangey-amber with a short, swirly beige head. The aroma picked up warm caramel and molasses sugars with pine resin on top.. very malty, and hot on the back of the nose. The flavor found toasted biscuity malts and caramel on the sweet core with resiny bitterness and tacky, peppery alcohol around.. finished spicy with residual, nondescript bitterness and light soapy notes. Medium-plus bodied with higher carbonation on the palate.. too hot for the ABV and too malt-forward for my liking, but it was otherwise aiight.

Maybe it doesn’t stand up to a tasting of double IPAs, but I didn’t think it was that bad--perhaps because I like a beer that has fruitiness and a mild hop profile. Not a monster, but still very drinkable. The malts seem a bit murkier than ideal, all the same. Bottle.

12 ounce bottle courtesy of pepsican. Thanks! Pours a hazy dark amber with fine floating particles. Thin creamy tan head. Decent head retention. Aroma of toffee malts, stone fruits and not much in the way of hops. The taste is toffee malts, stone fruits and muted citrus hops. Light tartness, faint lingering bitterness, low carbonation, low heat. This is underwhelming as an IPA, much less a DIPA.

Draft taster. I did not want a second strong beer before hitting the road, and although the sign for this beer said "No Samples," the server did shoot a tiny sample into a glass (for which I tipped in a dollar). This is not a knee-breaking DIPA by any means. But there is a stinging bitterness in the first sip and a suggestion of those Pacific Northwest hops. The hops are held back by a malty backbone. plus a taste of yeast, presuming this beer is unfiltered at premises.