Ale Mucho Hoppo
Charleville Vineyard Microbrewery

Had on tap. Hop bomb! Floral and perfume hops lay on top of a base beer with no much else to offer. Smell is aromatic and full with hops bitterness and dankness. Really unbalanced and after hop wave nothing else to offer in smell, taste or feel.

On draft in an imperial pint glass

Slightly hazy dark golden color, white head. Nice aroma of pine resin. Taste is balanced between caramelalt and bitter piney hops. Old school DIPA in a good way. Sticky mouthfeel.

 

Hazy brownish beer with a huge off-white head. The aroma is piney, woody, and spicy. A little citrus rind and earth. The taste is dryish, with a lot of malt and hops....full in flavor and solidly hoppy. Bitter, carbonated... this is an energetic beer. I loved the malty smell, and the serious hops.

 

 

 

Thanks, joshstl! This is one of the darkest DIPAs I've seen not classified as a black ale - a really deep chestnut brown, with a creamy khaki-colored head. This one tends to skew malty, where the hops provide a coniferous bitterness as a sweetness ballast. I'm getting a lot of toffee, caramel, brown sugar, and molasses alongside the piny hops. Not my favorite DIPA profile, but still intriguing. The taste brings a more defined malt flavor. After the front-loaded pine attack subsides, I start picking up flavors of caramel, toffee, vanilla, and dark fruits. This one is definitely barleywine-esque, and I like it. There's just enough of a hoppy finish to help keep it fairly dry. I'm not going to say that this beer doesn't live up to its namesake - instead, I'll say it lives up to the old-school ideology of a hoppy DIPA. It's not crisp, fruity, or tropical; no, this is malty, complex, yet somewhat bitter (think 90 Minute IPA over Resin). Despite my strong preference for the former, these guys still did a good job with this one.

3.6/5: Ale Mucho Malto?

 

 

 

 

 

 

From BeerAdvocate magazine Issue #69 (October 2012):

Brewers boasting about their IPA having 100 IBUs is like a strongman competition, it does not matter how big they look … it all comes down to if they can deliver or not. Our palates did get slammed with hops but even with the heavy hopping here there is some balance add the mellow 9% abv and it ends up being pretty damn drinkable. Ale Mucho Hoppo delivers!

STYLE: American Double IPA
ABV: 9.0%
AVAILABILITY: Rotating

LOOK: Hazed dark amber, impressive showing of lace

SMELL: Grapefruit rind, lemongrass, peppercorns, passion fruit, evergreen, floral, catty, mild tobacco, estery, pineapple, caramel

TASTE: Very smooth, biscuity, growing hop bitterness, semi-pungent, fresh grass, peppery, alcohol, minty, juicy, yeast, grapefruit pith, blood orange pulp, lingering hop bitterness, dry finish