Sierra Nevada Hoptimum

Holy shit this stuff is great!  I’m washing this beer down with a spicy roast beef sandwich at Bier Thirty, and I gotta say, the burn of the sandwich is having a hard time keeping up with the bitterness of this beer.  I ordered it as my drink of choice after doing a taster of it, followed directly by a taster of the Elysian Immortal IPA.  The Hoptimum was so powerful, I couldn’t even taste the Immortal. 

I hopped (aren’t I punny) over to the Sierra Nevada brewery website so I could learn a bit more about this beer, and holy hops, I was not expecting what I found.  First, at a 10.4% alcohol content, this beer is far stronger that the 7.2% Torpedo that I drink at home.  Second, this beer was hopped, dry hopped, and torpedoed.  That explains the 100 IBU this beer comes in at, compared to the 65 IBU rating for their Torpedo extra IPA.

The website goes on to talk about all of the hints of flavors of fruit and such that this beer has, and honestly, I’ve never understood that thing about beer brewers and their notion that I need to hear things about the ‘citrus flavors’ or ‘aroma of flower farts’.  We can sum it up simply by the notion that heavy hop beers have a certain sweetness to them, not a sugary sweet, but a light fruity sweet that varies by hops type.   This beer has so many hops, after the first rush of bitter you are left to try and sort out the subtle sweetness before it fades into a clean finish.

Sam Adams Latitude 48 IPA

Hi there!  Welcome to any who are interested in reading what I have to say about my adventures with the greatest drink ever invented.  I'm an amateur beer lover who loves to try new beers.  I started drinking beer in college - whatever got the most bang for the buck was my theory back then.  Once I was old enough to drink beer, I would hit the bars and order heineken (I was under some sort of delusional impression that drinking heineken at the bar was sophisticated).  When I wasn't trying to impress the ladies with my classy heineken, I was pounding down dollar PBR's for the effect.  It wasn't until a few short years ago that my taste for beer expanded beyond the cheap on tap at the local bar.  At first, the porters and stouts with their smooth smoky flavors took the top spot for my favorite beers.  Now, as I've tried hundreds of beers over the last couple of years, my tastes have moved into IPA's - somewhere I never expected to find myself on my drinking adventures.

But that is enough about me - lets talk about the beer I'm drinking!

I promised my Sam Adams beer reps from work that I would make sure to try their Latitude 48 IPA.  It has been a while since I made that promise, but tonight I'm keeping it.  My favorite local beer shop, Brewer's Haven, has them in singles, so I jumped on the chance to explore a new beer.

For the Sam Adams brand, though I wouldn't consider them to be my favorite company of all time, I have found that they have a solid stable of beers that I enjoy drinking, even if I don't get super excited about them.  I have yet to find a single variety of Sam Adams that I would consider to be anything less than a pleasant brew.

That  being said, I really like this beer.  When I drink an IPA, I expect a bitter hoppy flavor, and get mad when that robust bitterness is interrupted by a sweet malt blend.  I'm happy to say that with this beer, the hops are the centerpiece of the brew, and the malt flavors don't compete to take over your taste buds.  If anything, the malt is the platter upon which the hops are presented for the drinker's enjoyment.

This is a beer I would gladly bring home, and I really wish I had a BBQ chicken dish to pair it with -  I think the sweet of the chicken would blend amazingly with the non apologetic hops flavor this beer has to offer.