Collabergé
Sun King Brewing Company

 

 

 

 

Deep golden color with a finger of creamy head. Nose is bright and fruity. Aromas of apple, grape, melon, peach, and candy. Flavor is dominated by resinous hops and bready caramel malt with a dry finish. Feel is medium and dry with some lingering resin.

Dark apple colored body, very clear, showing very few signs of life. Head production is fine, as is retention. I'm definitely expecting a bit of caramel malt in the mix, based on the coloring.

The nose has an unmistakable champagne-like bite from the yeast, blending with caramel grains and bitter but amorphous hop tones: resin, pine, spruce, white grapes, and light touches of citrus, perhaps some crisp Granny Smith apple.

Pulls off the marriage of a Brut IPA and an Imperial IPA fairly well. Plenty of big, malty body, with plenty of caramel grains, slight toast and molasses, and honey. The hops are still somewhat indistinct, imparting plenty of bitterness, and flavors of pine, sticky resin, orange marmalade, and citrus peel.

Very lively and crisp, and I'll even go with dry. At first, it doesn't seem like it's going to pull of the Brut effervescence and dryness, with a big malt body up front, but by mid palate, this beer simply starts to disappear, like a ghost evaporating from your tongue, leaving behind bitter, sticky hop oils.

 

Clear orange amber pour with a frothy off-white foam head. Smells caramely, bready, malty with an explosive tropical fruity aroma, pineapple, papaya, mango, peach nectar, orange citrus, lemon, grapefruit, apricot, some dank herbs and floral earthy resinous pine. Tastes slightly bitter with some caramel bready malty sweetness balancing, big tropical and zesty citrus notes, pineapple, papaya, mango, peach, lemony orange grapefruity citrus, apricot, with dank earthy herbal floral resinous pine. Feels dry, fairly light medium bodied, smooth with moderate low carbonation. Overall a real nice imperial brut IPA.

Imperial IPA by their very nature has a tendency to retain a certain degree of malt sweetness and weight to balance against its high hop usage. But brut IPA is designed to be the driest of all hoppy styles. So when the Sun King and Austin Beerworks collaboration imperial brut IPA is made, something's got to give.

Sparkling chrome and shining with racy carbonated streams, the champagne looking beer builds a spritzy, foamy froth before enticing the nose with citrus peel, dried grasses and herbs and a fine honey malt floral nature. Scant sweetness is dryly of bread, grain and faint granola to start the show.

Then the brisk carbonation carries off the sweetness and the hop spring to life under the control of the bubbles. Orange peel, grapefruit peel, lemon peel all bring a refreshing fruitiness ahead of a quick late palate of herbal parsley, hemp and chive. Its bitterness is firm and withstanding, easily overshadowing any lingering malts with a sprucy, botanical and fresh grassiness in tow.

Medium light in body, the high carbonation keeps the session dry and bitter. Ushering away any thirst, not many IPA of this style is worthy of its label but this imperial statured one does the trick.

Pours a dark gold/amber with a robust amber head that persists through big bubbles. darker than most examples of the style I've seen but still a pretty beer.
Smell is bright and fruity with a caramely sweetness underneath. Smells heavy and boozy.
Taste is surprisingly light with a bitter lemon peel flavor front and center, the sweet booziness of the nose shows itself enough to balance the bitterness. Nice old school ipa flavor. the booze is well hidden in this one.
Mouthfeel is spot on and definitely shows why people want this style to work, super light and crisp for the size of this thing, drinks like a 5% pale made for the river on these hot days. No sign of the 8%+ at all.
Overall this is one of my favorite examples of the style I've had, the big base keeps the enzyme from thinning out the beer too much and the hop flavors/aromas really shine. Great stuff.