Strubbe IPA
Brouwerij Strubbe

 

Pleasant wheat flavor with a metallic yeasty edge. Hazy dark amber brew with piles of long-lasting foam in the half-pint nonic. Kind of a slow spew on popping the cork, but it's easy to control.

Dark fruit and tannic flavors. Bitter finish. Faintly sweet, slightly rusty, but cleaner than some of theseyeast bombs. The fruity dry pear flavor is actually quite nice.

This seems like another of those workmanlike Belgians that deserve more to be gulped on a hot patio than treated with any reverence. From the 750 ml bottle purchased at Whole Foods on Market St. in San Francisco.

 

 

From BeerAdvocate magazine Issue #68 (Spetember 2012):

LOOK: Clear copper color, great lacing

SMELL: Minty, green tea, white pepper, melon, mango, biscuity, mineral, spice, orange pith, yeast

TASTE: Deep smoothness, mild crisp pop, medium bodied, hint of creaminess, leafy bitterness, mint, green tea, earthy, yeast, dried grass, biscuity, ripe tropical fruit, mealy pears, extremely dry, tea leaf finish

Not your usual IPA but the Belgian IPA was a complete departure from a nearly dead style that was re-used by American brewers. Go figure. No doubt we have run into one of the most interesting Belgian IPAs to date. Controlled chaos comes to mind first, an enjoyable sip to say the least.

 

Served in a 13 ounce tulip on draft. At the time of writing no one else appears to comment on a draft pour. I think I'm going to have a difficult time to give this an intellegent review today. Here is an attempt.

A - Opaque copper color ale with steady small bubbles lacing the goblet fully.

S - Very subtle lightly toasted bread.

T - Caramels masked by bittering hops. Finishing hops may not be present in this IPA?

M - Delightfully coats the palate and ephervesence sparks interest.

O - Yeast nor hops take a lead. Easy to consume.

Today my pour was $5 USD. Cheers!

 

 

 

 

To each his own. This Strubbe IPA is truly a unique brew. The appearance is perfectly fine, nice amber/caramel look, the smell is clean and citrus out front, but the hops are definitely there. Pours a decent head, some lacing. Taste is not as complex as I would hope from a Belgian, but it is certainly acceptable, after all it's an IPA and make no mistake it is exactly as advertised, an amber pale ale. The dude on the label is a bit odd, maybe some monk having fun with us, or a Mad Magazine artist got loose. But every now ant then, try something different, it's not over the top, but certainly worth trying.

A finger and half of head on a cloudy, apricot colored body.
The aroma is walnut, orange and lemon. The walnut is an interesting note, but it fits.
The taste is moderately bitter, orange sweet in the middle, then sour at the end. The profile seems disjointed but it's unique.
Crisp texture, moderate carbonation and medium body.
A good and worthy IPA .

 

Ick. After seeing the scores for this and taking one sip, I thought: well, maybe this won't be so bad. That turned out to not be the case.

The nose on this thing is totally dead. Like smelling dirty air. Flavor carries a Belgian tone, but the earthy and dirty aftertaste is so nasty that there is no redeeming quality about it. Kind of a tangy thing going on there, which is okay. But really, the whole aftertaste thing has really killed the whole experience for me at this point.

Stick to Flanders style ales Strubbe, for all of our good.

 

I can't help writing about this one. Pours a very clear dark orange amber with gold highlights and a thin white head. Much darker than most IPAs.

Nose is much more Belgian esters that traditional "hopped" IPA. I'd guess a Belgian Ale not an IPA from the nose so to that extent the nose is not at least what Americans would call an IPA nose.

Mouthfeel is crisp and clean so that the thin character of the mouth is easily overlooked. Light fizzy carbonation. However, the flavor profile so dominates that the mouthfeel is almost meaningless.

Flavors are giant bitter green ivy and bitter green grass - all not in a good way. There is a hint of "green sweet" at the very front that quickly turns to the offensive green bitter dry finish. Tastes a bit like liquid grass and the finish is so strong and long lasting that one needs a palate cleanser quickly.

This one has little appealing and is over all like one bit into the stem of a green tree or chewed on ivy.

Please, get some mints or at least a heavy stout handy if you're going to try this one.

 

 

The wife bought this 750 and I am cracking it open. I don't trust the dude on the front though. Looks a lil freaky. Pours a darker amber colored ale with beige head when aggravated. I thought it would be larger than it is but I push on. The smell is the worst thing about this beer. There is a pronounced rubbery/plastic smell to it. Maybe it's the type of hops...not sure. If you can get past the rubber smeel there is a background of fruit (orange, green grapes) and light floral. The taste is ok for a Belgian IPA. The smell is still in the nose which is somewhat distracting. Some fruity bite to each sip and well carbonated for the style. The taste seems to disappear rather quickly and the aftertaste is almost non-existent. Overall based on the first review I was hoping to bring this up a little but my experience was so-so. While it's not awful, it just wasn't to my liking. I will say as it warms slightly it does take on a better flavor. It states on the bottle to serve at 42-50 degrees but I would recommend serving closer to 50 degrees.

Poured out of a 750ml that i purchased from lunardis in san bruno. A hazy chestnut brown with a thick finger of white foam that left pretty lacing. The nose had a lactic sourness with bready malts and some light sour citrus notes. The taste brought more light sour, red fruitiness along with a hint of belgian yeast spice and caramel malts - where was the ipa bitterness at? Drinkable if not a little muddied and seemingly could have been a bit better carbonated. Doubtful that i would try this again.