Thursday, December 6, 2007

Hop Hearty Ale


Beer: New Glarus Hop Hearty Ale
Brewery Location: New Glarus, WI
Beer Style: IPA
Serving Style: Bottle
ABV: 6.10%


I am still working through some of the beer my friend Courtney brought back from Wisconsin. I didn't realize I even had this in my stash. It was a nice surprise to find this and give it a try. Regular IPA's are usually my go-to beers. I almost always have Two-Hearted from Bells or Stone's IPA on hand for just about all occasions.

Pours a slight hazed copper color with a small tight white head. The beer leaves decent rings of lacing on my pint glass. Good nose with a dominant scent of heavy hops and a slight grass scent with a touch of caramel about half way down. The taste is balance of toasted malt, slight caramel flavor with citrus fruit making its way onto your palate. The hop bitterness blends very well with the caramel flavor the entire beer. Lightly carbonated body, but it leaves very little aftertaste after swallow. I was hoping for a bit more here, but overall very solid offering. The drinkability is very good for this IPA, and with how well balanced it is makes for easy drinking that will have you wanting another one.

This isn't a smack you in the face IPA, and I tend to like balanced IPA's a bit more than the over-the-top hop profile IPA's with no malt balance. Solid offering from New Glarus. If this ever comes back to Indiana it is well worth the try.

Cheers!
Matt

2 comments:

CorrND said...

Never heard of this one. If I see it, I'll give it a whirl.

Also wanted to let you know that the next tapping at Rock Bottom downtown will be December 19th. They're tapping "Old Curmudgeon," a Double IPA according to the Brewers of Indiana Guild. If there was a time to make it to your first tapping, this is the beer.

Matt said...

Thanks for the heads up on that. I will be there for this one!