Stoudts Double IPA

12oz bottle via trade with LinusStick. Thanks much! Pours a flat copper-orange with surprisingly light hop aroma. Full-bodied and hoppy with very little bitterness. Drinks almost like a light barleywine. Finishes with sweet honey and malt balancing out the hops. Really masks the 10% ABV.

Bronze with a fabulous hop-pocked head. Intriguing bouquet of honeyed malt, candi sugar, perhaps some Simcoe?, and fruity hops. Passionfruit and candi malted flavors. Borderline American Strong Ale for its emphasis on the malt backbone. Oh so drinkable. Stunned to see this is over 10% ABV let alone 8%. Incredibly well-crafted and balanced. A dangerously drinkable, jackhammer of an IPA.

Very good. Definitely a strong beer, a little too strong for the recipe. So much malt that it was a little on the sweet side for an IPA. Full bodied and heavy with some alcohol flavor. Hop flavors were overpowered in this. Very drinkable and enjoyable though. Raisin sweetness was strange for an IPA.

12oz bottle at the Brickskeller. Hazy orange with a small, sticky head. Fruity, hoppy aroma, leaning on honey, citrus and light pine. The flavor has a big malt body with moderate to higher sweetness, and a bitter grapefruit, and peach hoppiness. The bitterness is just enough to cut some of the sweetness, but falls pretty short of being a hop-bomb. I was moderately into the balance, but I’m getting sick of these malt bomb IIPAs. A fine beer, but not exactly satisfying to a hop-head.

Pours a hazy orange color with a really creamy white head. Lots of lacing as this beer just flowed from the glass. Aroma was lots of fresh hops and a nice raspberry sweetness. Flavor was significantly less hoppy and much more malty. Not my preference for a DIPA, but still very good. I was pleasantly surprised by this fine brew.

12oz. Pours hazy orange. Small-ish off-white head. Flavor is reminiscent of a barley wine. Especially upon warming, the flavor is dominated by raisins and dark fruit. Hides it’s alcohol content really well. After reading all these ratings commenting on old bottles, I’m wondering if mine wasn’t old too?

I had to check the date to make sure I wasn’t drinking it too far after the hop profile died but sure enough it was fresh. A tad too weak for my DIPA tastes.

[Bottle, <2 months old] Pours deep amber with a small off-white head. Aroma is really strange, and when cold reminds me of rubber cement and green apples. It becomes more herbal and tolerable when it warms, but it is still pretty unappealing. Taste is sweeter than I thought with some strange apple notes, a little alcohol, malt in the finish, and very little hop bitterness. A little muddle and nothing crisp about it. This also becomes better as it warms, and at above normal drinking temps (at least for what I drink my IIPAs at) it becomes ok, with a lot of raisin. Fairly smooth and a little thin with a below average length finish. Could this really have dropped off this badly in less than 2 months? I will have to try a really fresh bottle, because this was really strange and terribly underwhelming.