Hop Honcho
Fat Head's Brewery & Saloon

 

12oz can from April purchased today at room temperature poured into a Spiegelau IPA glass at fridge temp 9% ABV 90 IBU. Living dangerously. The beer pours hazy amber in color with light khaki head. The head recedes to a thin cap and leaves rings of lacing. The aroma is mild with caramel malt and faded pine & grapefruit. The taste is bittersweet caramel malt with more fading hops and firm bitterness. Mouthfeel is medium bodied with average carbonation and a semi dry finish. Overall, good, but past it's prime. Numerical rating bumped to the average to compensate for conditions.

 

 

 

Big and flavorful. Full of juicy grapefruit and pine with a traditional hop bitterness at the end.

Interestingly, "honcho" isn't a Spanish word. It's actually Japanese for "Squad Leader." American POWs brought the term back from the war and it soon joined the vernacular.

Dōmo arigatō, Mr. Hop Honcho.

12oz can. Poured out a clear, golden orange color with a small, off-white head of foam. It left sudsy trails of lacing. It smelled of orange, grapefruit, pineapple, bready notes and pine. Sweet citrusy taste with toffee and a sharp, resinous bitterness.

 

 

 

 

 

 

If you wouldn't know better yourself, one sip of Fat Head's Imperial IPA would suggest that you were drinking on the West Coast. Doing that style better than the vast majority of even West Coast brewers, Fat Heads leads the pack with their "Chief of the Leaf" beer.

Pale golden straw and only displaying a faint haze, the frothy Hop Honcho revs up with a bold hop perfume of pine, citrus, tropical fruit and peppery herb for a curiously dank but fruity perfume. But the taste leads first with a soft foundation of caramel, honey and seemingly granola in a malty introduction.

But anything sweet is short lived as the hops rush in with a burst of tangerine, pink grapefruit and lime with a slightly more tropical nod toward pineapple and apricot. Diving quickly into a drying late taste, the fruit flavors depict fruit peels, rinds and pith in a clean bitterness woven together with peppery pine, fresh grass clippings and dry hemp.

Medium bodied and trending dry and dangerously drinkable, its easy to look past the beer's elevated alcohol content and drink in refreshing, quaffable manner. A long and bitter aftertaste is a welcomed reset of IPA back to something gullet gripping, strikingly bitter, but still crisp sensibility.

Yes, yes yes yes yes. It is a big yes from me. Great outfit. Great beer aroma is piney happy taste delivers on the nose. Mouth feel is rich and smooth. It is a winner from fat head.

 

 

 

Canned On: 4-19-23

A - Medium gold colored pour with bright white creamy lacing and light carbonation.

S - Light citrus and apricot, overall aroma is on the lighter side.

T - Strawberry, citrus, apricot, passion fruit, sweet red grapefruit, with dank resiny pine on the finish. This beer is all hops from start to finish.

M - Big, viscous body with prickly carbonation.

O - Light nose but the flavor palate more than makes up for it. Recommended.