Shovelhead
Buckeye Lake Brewery

 

 

 

I got a bottle of this off the single shelf from my local Giant Eagle. It poured a dark copper with white head that is not leaving much lace. The scent had fresh leafy hop notes. The taste was pine leaning with sweet malt balance. The mouthfeel was medium in body with good carbonation. Overall it's an ok beer.

 

 

Hazy this. Smoothie that. The craft beer world has run amuck with innovation. High risk, high reward. Swing and hit, swing and miss. But with the yesteryear of beer in our hip pocket its easy to turn to something that simply works. And the Buckeye Lake Brewery has done just that with a standard and safe imperial IPA for both comfort and calm.

Burnt orange and with a tinge of rust, the hazy beer rises with a creamy off white froth. Its fruit filled aromas round the nose with citrus, tropical fruit and a sharp herbal scent. Layered on a bed of caramel, honey, shortbread and graham cracker, the malt influences are firm, sweet and supportive of the hops and natural esters that come alive on the middle palate.

A slow recession of sweetness keeps the lightly toasty, nutty and caramelized grains hanging around even while a robust wave of hop derived fruitiness packs a punch of orange, mango, apricot and pink grapefruit. Estery fruit flavors mingle with biscuity sweetness to infer a taste of bitter marmalade. Stone fruits come in late as the ale turns toward bitterness. Dry grassiness, citrus peels and the sharpness of torn pine cones promise a drying and drinkable character.

Medium full on the palate, the linger of malt sweetness keeps the mouthfeel higher despite of the vodka sharpness of alcohol, the resinous drying ability of hops and a continuing lightening of grain influence. A long linger of grasses and fruit rinds keeps the palate both malty dry and refreshed.

Pours almost greenish brown. Head is off white. No lacing at all. Nose is heavy on the hops as is the taste. Interesting aftertaste I attribute to not being fully balanced. Good beer.

 

 

Bottle

Pours slightly hazy amber, white head is firm and dissipates to a lacing.

Smells of biscuit, pine, honey, and herbal hops.

Flavor is of honey and biscuit malts with a piney and herbal hop finish. Some maple in the aftertaste.

Medium to full body, bubbly carbonation on the tongue.

Really good DIPA, old school style. Lots of good flavor. I like this a lot and hope to get more.

32oz crowler from WesMantooth, canned on September 24, 2017.

Poured into a shaker pint, this was a clear, coppery amber, with a big, rocky and creamy off-white head. All kinds of lace.

Hoppy nose of grapefruit and pineapple scents. Some melon as well.

While the sweet, fruity hoppiness makes up most of the flavor, the more bitter, grapefruity aspects keep things from getting out of hand. Like a lot of Midwest IPAs, there's a substantial malt backbone, but it's still far enough in the background for it to still work for this PNW IPA fan. The finish is fairly sweet for an IPA, but not jarringly so. Not much trace of the high abv.

Thick, resiny, oily mouthfeel, with carbonation a little low but not too surprising for something crowlered nearly six weeks ago.

This is a big, thick but still quite approachable IIPA. 32oz of this beer is no chore at all to drink. If this were local, it'd be a change of pace IIPA for me. I might not go for it every time, but I'd enjoy it when I did. Thanks, Corey!