Cross Eyed Stranger
Devils Backbone Brewing Company

 

 

This one pours a dark burnt orange, clear, with a small head, and not much lacing.

This smells kind of astringent, boozy pine, with caramel, and fruit cup syrup.

This one doesn't really work well for me. I like my IPAs to be bitter, but this is astringent- there's a difference. It has a bit of fruity syrupy character that I also don't love.

This is too thick and syrupy- it doesn't seem to have attenuated all that well. It's got a normal level of carbonation.

I feel like Devil's Backbone is probably much better at traditional-ish stuff than IPAs.

A - cloudy, pale yellow; medium frothy head, long lasting; good lacing
S - piney/citrus hops; sweet malts
T - sweet malts followed with those 90 IBUs; astringent aftertaste
F - slightly medium bodied; smooth, but less body than expected for the ABV
O - decent, but nothing great; still, I'd drink it again.

Pours golden and nearly crystal clear with just a bit of faint haze, until I pour the last of the bottle into the glass which results in some light swirls of sediment, then a more cloudy brew. 2 and 1/2 finger mounding head that looks fairly thick and becomes somewhat chunky as it recedes. The second pour had an even larger head, leaving awesome sticky lacing.

The aroma is spicy and citric. Over ripe citrus at the onset, becoming more lemony as it goes. Backed by an aroma of sweet honey.

On first taste I though, wow this is really dry, but I think the bitter hops overpowered everything else. I had been expecting something sweeter after the aroma. But the bitterness mellowed, and the character developed, with tropical fruit and spice, citrus, orange peel,and big caramel malts. Light taste of alcohol.

Medium bodied and just lightly crisp, but smooth. It leaves a great coating in the mouth, and a light burn of alcohol.

This was my 2nd brew from the DB Virginia Brewers Pack. I'd drank the Vienna Lager last night, and was disappointed, I didn't like it. It was no where near the 3.76 as I'd reviewed it in 2012, so I was leery about this one, being the lowest rated of the bunch. The appearance was great, but the aroma seemed subdued, likely because the beer was over 4 1/2 months old. The first sip was nondescript as well, but the taste turned it around from there. I also knocked the aroma up a notch because of the complexity. This is a great beer! I don't get all the low reviews, apparently my sampling held up better. I wish I could get a full six pack of this.

Pours a hazy gold color. 1/3 inch head of a white color. Great retention and decent lacing. Smells of spicy hops, grass, pale malt, slight piney hops, and earthiness. Fits the style of an American IPA. Mouth feel is quite sharp and crisp, with an average carbonation level. There is also a noticeable bitterness and distinct dryness. Tastes of slight liquor, spicy hops, piney hops, wheat, strong grass, and earthiness. Overall, good appearance, unpleasantly sharp, body and aroma dominated by an earthy, grassy, and almost liquor characteristic that was unfortunate.

 

Poured from the bottle into a Spiegelau IPA glass. He Mr. beer seller, I can't see any dating on this box how long has this been around? Is this recently released? Oh sure yeah that's new. Ok cool. Get home opened it up an the IPA is bottled on March 6th 2017. Sigh… playing with my border line edge here.

Good fluffy off white forming head, with a nice top that has a good flattened but beveled creamy appearance. Settles slowly easing to a good two finger height. Classic somewhat clear amber orange body color, almost pale a bit, but fine streams of carbonation as well. Decent looking IPA.

Malt forward a bit but not totally. Hints of perfume but also some good deal of caramel sweetness, almost into a toffee quality and crispy smelling. Exotic smelling not really, a touch of tropics, sort of guava/papaya like but muted.

Palate manages some interesting but nothing too fantastic. Mild sensing malt body, even an almost mid palate crispness on first sip. Good amounts of earth and really sharp bitterness on the finish. Very long lasting hop angle, dried to sharp herbs, with the bitterness just getting a hair out of control. Repeated sips are hop hot, with large bitterness. Decent simple neutral mouthfeel, if flirting with light qualities.

Perfectly fine drinkable IPA, missing much interesting aromatics, but nothing to crazy to get excited about. Don’t think having this "fresher" would have change my opinion of it. If anything, it's pretty bitter and hardly mellow at all.

 

Poured from a 12 oz brown bottle into a clear glass tulip. Bottled 04.17.17.

A: Hazy lemon yellow with 1-finger of foamy white head with decent retention and scrappy lacing.

S: Bready malt aroma with a lot of lime and orange with some weedy grassy hop aromas

T: Hops are dominant with a lime leaf and orange flavors with a lot of herbal, weedy grassiness with a bitter of mint in the finish. Malt is bready and provides balance. Highly bitter, too much so.

M: Smooth for the bitterness with medium carbonation and body.

O: A unique beer but has flavors that don't work too well together along with an overly bitter character.

ABV is a bit high to be consider something other than a double IPA.

 

 

 

12oz bottle poured into a snifter

A- pours a hazy golden yellow color with a thin creamy white head that reduces to a film on tap and leaves some lacing behind

S- grassy and herbal hops, a bit of pine, citrus, bready-almost doughy malt

T- grassy and piney up front, followed by some juniper berry flavors, slightly medicinal mid-palate, the finish is malty and bready, lingers of more pine and grass

M- medium body and carbonation leads to a foamy mouthfeel that turns into a creamy semi-dry finish

O- an interesting hop mix, this is is pretty balanced for an IPA, not something you see very often these days

 

 

 

 

Second bottle of this one from the collaboration variety pack. Bottling date 3/7/17.

The color of the beer is a nice shiny dark gold, with a good layer of white foam on top. Mostly clear with just a slight bit of haze, rising bubbles are very visible and abundant. Leaves some lacing behind on the glass here and there.

Smell is fairly mild as IPAs go, but I'm getting a bit of piney-hops, some citrus rind (maybe a little orangey?), and some crackery/bready type malt smells. Maybe a bit of a sweet-ish orangey thing too, I'm noticing now. Definitely seems to lean in the citrusy direction. After a few sips it seems that a dried grass or hay-like thing is becoming present in both the taste and smell -- it's kinda nice in the taste but a little funky and not as pleasant in the smell, at least when it first starts showing up. Toward the end of the glass the funkiness fades and it's more of a blend of that bitter orange rind and the hay. Almost comes across as this very pleasant sort of dried orange thing at the end of the glass -- was going to give it a 3.25 in the smell category due to how weird that hay-like thing got around the middle of the glass, but I'll have to bump my smell score up a bit for that, that's really nice.

Taste is also mostly citrusy, and definitely bitter (I suppose that shouldn't be surprising considering that this measures at 90 IBUS!) There's a definite "white part on the inside of an orange rind" sort of thing going on here, along with some of the crackery/bready malt that I noticed in the smell. Lingering orange-rind bitterness that continues to hang on for quite a while after a sip. Burps are nice and fruity, orange-like. I think I'm getting a bit of a sort of dried grass/hay sort of thing in there too? Toward the end of the glass my taste buds have gotten used to the bitterness and it no longer seems to linger forever after taking a sip, making it easier to drink more of the beer at a faster pace.

Mouthfeel is pretty nice, carbonation is fairly mild (not super fizzy) and it has a nice slightly-slick, substantial sort of feel to it. It's more of a sipping beer vs. a gulping one but it goes down easy enough that they can be pretty big sips sometimes. Seems to be fairly dry overall, all that bitterness overpowers any lingering sweetness the beer might have otherwise had. Not noticing any alcohol warmth or flavors.

Overall, this was pretty nice -- I ended up liking it A LOT more on my second bottle compared to the first, where I found it kind of harsh more than anything else. I guess my taste buds just weren't in the mood for hoppy/bitter that day. This was probably one of the most bitter IPAs I've ever had, but it was an interesting change from a lot of the others I've tried where the hop flavors themselves (fruity, piney, etc.) were much more noticeable than the bitterness.