20
Mikkeller ApS

Amber color with a thick off-white head with great retention and leaving a wall of laces.
Aroma with notes of mango, spices, mild pine and caramel.
Hoppy flavor with notes of resin, lots of spices, melon changing to grapefruit, caramels, pine, slightly toasted and biscuit malts, dank and tangy hops and tea leaves. Dry and bitter aftertaste.
Medium towards full body with appropriate carbonation. Alcohol of 6.8% is absent.
Assertive American IPA, spicy, caramelly and citrusy. I was expecting more complexity given the magical number twenty, but it wasn't the case.

 

330 ml bottle poured into a Lagunitas mason jar glass. A murky flat brown-orange amber hue with five towering fingers of frothy, soapy beige head. Leaves nice lacy rings on the glass. The visuals create a thick and dark impression.

The aroma is as hoppy as expected. Tons of sweet citrus and tropical fruit: I'm getting mandarins, limes, passion fruit, white grapefruit, guavas, blood oranges, dates (?), a little lemon. Low key pine needles. Some toffee underneath it all.

Palate is rather deceiving after the bright fruit nose. Weighted towards bitter citrus rind rather than fresh juice, herbs, melon skins, pink grapefruit rather than white, ginger root, lemon-lime soda, baby aspirin, old pineapple juice, dry biscuit, a slight toffee sweetness to provide a foil. The malts remind me of the Mikkeller single hop ales, bready and quite assertive considering the style but here the multitude of hops manages to gain ascendency. Decent whiff of booze. Quite dry and almost chalky. Medium thick body with low key carbonation.

All in all, this is worth your time as a hop head if not absolutely essential. I'd say the aroma hops outperform their flavor counterparts, which is not fundamentally a problem.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A: Pours a hazy, murky amber with a thick, pillowy off-white head.

S: Aromas of talc, chalk, caramel, biscuits, lime, mandarin orange, lemon, and kumquat are present on the nose.

T: Notes of caramel, biscuit, chalk, crackers, pine, spruce, grapefruit, lemon, lime, kumquat, bitter orange, mango, guava, mandarin orange, and herbs coat the palate. The finish is bitter and bready with a nice balance of herb, tangy citrus, and biscuit flavors.

M: Medium-bodied and quite dry for the style. Carbonation is incredibly active and firm.

O: A nice mixed IPA. For some reason I love the muddy rush of hop bitterness many of Mikkeller's hoppier beers deliver, and this one certainly does not disappoint.

330ml bottle. 20 different hops? Variety is the spice of life, I guess.

This beer pours a rather murky medium bronzed amber hue, with three fat fingers of puffy, frothy, and tightly foamy off-white head, which leaves a whole lotta splotchy snow rime lace around the glass as it slowly seeps away.

It smells of muddled (gee, really?) tropical fruit, a bit more focused fleshy orange and pine needle bitterness, a strange musty white wine sweetness, and bready, crackery, and biscuity caramel malt. The taste is buttery and bready caramel malt, hard toffee, mandarin orange, overripe lemon and white grapefruit rind, still mixed-up exotic, and somewhat sugary fruit, earthy spice, and more leafy, piney, and herbal hop notes.

The carbonation is fairly light and just a bit edgy, the body an adequate medium weight, and way more smooth than the collective efforts of a score of hop varietals should allow, with a nascent airy creaminess building as it warms. It finishes on the sweet side, with the obvious malt culprit, and the hops aiding and definitely abetting in their fruity rather than bitter demeanor.

Not a bad IPA, overall, but much like the 1000 IBU DIPA of a few years ago, the inflated numbers really don't mean squat, as far as one's tastebuds are concerned - it's more for the marketing wanks out there. In the end, the hops are decent, I suppose, but unfortunately, the herbal essence is what I take away from them, which consequently does little to engender desire for another.