Dogfish Head 120 Minute IPA. You Are Not Worthy.

Usually, I try to think of some relevent title. But in this case, I just put the name of this beer right away in the title. Why? For the same reason that God is spelled with a capital-G. Why beat around the bush? If you have not tasted this beer, go buy some at your local beer mecca. Now. Stop reading this post, go buy some, try it, then come back and read it. Share in my joy.


Bring your drinkin' livers. This badass weighs-in at 21% abv. 21%, people. Wine is weaker than this beer. Champagne is weaker than this beer. Some liquors are weaker than this beer. Some people I know are too weak for this beer. But you, my loyal readers, are not too weak for this beer. This is the beer you've been waiting for. This beer is America: I'll take your little IPA, England, and make it this because it needs balls. 4:00 tea-time. Bah. It's 5 minutes to 11 in the morning and I need a little pick-me up.

This...this...elixir pours a beautiful opaque orange color with lovely ruby highlights when held to light. The coppery orange of a fresh penny. It leaves a thin but fluffy white head which leaves a lacing down the glass sticky enough to make you have to scrub it out when you're done rather than rinse it. There's a lot going on here.

Right on top, I smelled huge amounts of sugary caramel and a whopping load of ethanol. At 21% abv, you could run a fucking Prius on this beer. Behind it all, as it is continuously hopped for a two-hour boil (about an hour or so longer than a normal boil), is a strong backbone a citrusy hops. Oranges, orange peel. Maybe even a tad of pine.

Put this beer to your lips and quaff deeply. Massive caramel and malt. A big sugary, malty wave blasts your tongue; heavily sweet but strangely not cloying. Then the reason for the Malt Assault hits your tongue: 2 hours worth of alpha acids from an amount of hops that should be outlawed. Citrus melds into pine like a mosh pit when Metallica was still cool. But here's the deal. That many hops would make a normal beer taste vaguely like a tin can filled with blood. But with this much malt, you may as well drink a shot of vodka in sugar water. But the two together in this beer actually form a very well-balanced blend for an American Triple IPA. The sweetness is not so cloying because of the hop assault, which is not so tinny because of the malt explosion. I am telling you, this is a beer that both hop heads and scottish ale lovers will enjoy.

But just 1. I was buzzed half way through the pint.

Of course, you do taste that ethanol burn over the top. It is the one problem I have with this beer; that it has an alcoholic burn that I wonder whether or not is stifles some of the other tastes. But by "problem" I mean "constructive criticism." By "constructive criticism" I mean "I want to sound like I don't worship a beer that has more alcohol than wine."

The malts give this beer a fuller body than normal, as both the sugary taste and the ethanol really coat the mouth. The carbonation is pretty light. All in all, it's a pretty big-bodied beer without being a stout.

Normally, an IPA is refreshing and drinkable. Think India in the summer tiem and you need a beer to refresh yourself. Well, an American TIPA is not the beer to do that with. This is a very drinkable beer....one at a time. This beer drinks more like a barleywine than anything else. But it has such immense and surprisingly complex flavors in such a huge beer that it is every bit worth drinking. One at a time. If you tried to make this a "session beer," you'd be two things: wasting beer; and drunk.

Biggest downside: $10 for a 12-ounce bottle. But do it. Splurge. Shell-out the big bucks for a bottle and drink it like a bourbon.