Speakeasy Double Daddy IPA

Location: 22 oz bottle from Whole Foods - Bowery, 10/31/09

Aroma: The nose begins with a sweet grapefruit aroma, and then transitions through to some caramel, toffee, and a bit of alcohol.
Appearance: The pour is a slightly hazy orange color with a nice white, foamy head that has excellent retention.
Flavor: The taste doesn’t quite match up to the nose, there’s the citrus hop, but it doesn’t have that really nice hop flavor, and the alcohol burn is quite prevalent.
Palate: The mouthfeel is alright, but it does lean toward the thin side, light-medium body, and you can feel the ABV a bit too much on the way down.
Overall Impression: Overall this beer is a pretty decent brew, but it doesn’t quite reach the points that a great DIPA does, but it does make for a solid/drinkable brew. It reminds me a bit of the Big Daddy, but the ABV seems to take away from this one just a little bit.

12 ounce bottle from Beer Run in Charlottesville, VA. Pours a clear golden copper color with a medium creamy offwhite head. Good head retention and lacing. Malty aroma with notes of caramel, light toffee and a good amount of floral, citrus and pine hop notes. Taste is bitter leafy citrus hops with a caramel finish, a bit underwhelming compared to the aroma. Thin-medium bodied.

Amber pour with a creamy white head and lace. Alot of malt, grapefruit, and hints of abv. Semi sweet malt, nice warmth, and very good bitter. Full solid palate with good carbonation. A good beer just not enough malt to carry the abv.

Not so great DIPA, all alcohol and bitterness. The mark of a good IPA or DIPA is hop flavor, not hop bitterness. Speakeasy’s Double Daddy misses the mark in this respect. It’s a strong beer at 9.5% abv and a bitter beer, but somehow, the hop bitterness doesn’t even do a particularly good job at masking the alcohol. They really have a lot to work on with this beer. It’s probably one of my least favorite DIPAs or IPAs out of around 100 reviewed so far. There’s a caramel malt backbone in there somewhere, but the bitterness and alcohol mask it nearly entirely. I’ve given this beer a few chances now, and I’m still quite disappointed. I really want to like Speakeasy as a hometown brewery, but I simply haven’t been a fan of their beers thus far. This beer is pretty middle of the road in terms of appearance, which is about the nicest thing that I can say about as compared to the style.

(bottle - 12 oz) Hazy amber pour with a creamy tan head. Citrus and juicy hops dominate the nose with a lot of malts. Flavor is sweet and malty at the front with a nice caramel sweetness that moves to a bitter citrus middle. Finishes dry and bitter with a nice crispness. Alcohol is well hidden.

12oz bottle courtesy of Nick3 poured into a tulip. Pours a clear, bubbly golden amber with a solid one-inch creamy head that shows very good retention and decent lacing. It’s mostly citrus rinds in the nose with orange and lemon zest and hints of grapefruit. Plenty of sweet caramel in there as well as some toasted bready malts. The taste has a stinging bitterness up front with some pithy citrus fruit, lots of oranges. The backbone is toasted bread and some caramel malts. There is an overall astringency and herbal character that doesn’t seem to come together all that well. The mouthfeel is medium bodied and almost syrupy with the hop juice sitting pretty heavily on the tongue alongside a sugary malt sweetness. This is a decent DIPA though there’s nothing to set it apart from most others out there. It’s a bit syrupy with an astringent herbal character that takes away from the drinkability a bit.

12oz bottle. murky amber-orange pour with a thin white head that leaves a ring. aroma of hops, flowers, pine and honey. citrus hop taste with a solid malty backbone. also with a tea and grape vibe. crisp medium palate with a rye bitter finish. hides its alcohol well. tough to break into my favorites in this style, but definitely good and tasty.

This is an enhanced version of Speakeasy’s Big Daddy IPA. It has a higher alcohol content and is slightly richer and heavier. I tend to look for IPA’s with higher alcohol. This IPA delivers a strong, balanced flavor of hops and malt. It maintains a medium body while opening more flavors than the typical IPA. For a lighter beer see Speakeasy’s Big Daddy IPA. This one is slightly more serious and complex.