Triple D IPA
Otto's Pub and Brewery

 

 

 

I tried this on tap at Sturges Speakeasy served chilled in a chalice.

The color is a medium golden amber with slight haziness and thick white head with fine bead and spots of lace left sticking. The smell is a slightly tropical citrus hop aroma with gentle herbal quality. The feel is good with a moderate carbonation and low sweetness with medium bitterness level and moderately high alcohol in the feel with bitterness lingering in the back.

The taste is very good with mild citrus pith flavor and slight pine-like hop taste with light sweetness from malt and a sort of spicy kind of hop flavor with peppery quality coming from alcohol as it finishes very dry. This is a decent Triple IPA but it suffers from the usual issue I have with this style (Over 10% IPA) that the alcohol is not hidden and becomes cumbersome to drink more than 1/2 pint of.

 

Had on-tap at the brewpub. Poured into a chalice.

L: Pours a semi-opaque dark golden amber color. Two fingers of white head fall rapidly. Solid lacing.

S: Resinous hops... I can almost smell the bitter. Evergreen and biscuits.... a bit herbal.

T/F: Solid malt body which is rapidly overtaken by a bitter hopstravaganza. More grapefruit than I would have expected from the nose. Spruce/evergreen and floral on top. Very dry... warming and a bit boozy. Zesty carbonation and finishes clean.

O: A big bitter IPA with solid flavor. A little over the top and I honestly prefer the Double-D (better balance to my mind). Still... lots of flavor and one to sip and savor. It's not there often so a great one to snag when it's available.

Served on tap in a chalice glass

Appearance – The beer is served a very hazy orange amber color with a tiny white colored head. The head fades super-fast leaving only a bit of foamy lace on the sides of the glass.

Smell – The aroma of the beer is quite heavy of a bready and sweet fruit aroma with most of the fruit being of a tangerine and orange aroma. Along with the tangerine and orange are some other fruit aromas of tropical fruits with some mango and papaya there as well. Being a triple IPA, as would be expected there is a good amount of hoppy smells as well. The hop aromas are heaviest of a bitter grapefruit smell, but other smells of lighter pine and earthy aromas are there too.

Taste – The taste begins with a thick bready flavor with lots of sweeter tropical fruit flavors of tangerine and a bit of mango. Right at the start there is a big grapefruit hop flavor which blasts the tongue with bitterness. The grapefruit grows even stronger as the taste advances bringing even more of its bite to the tongue. As this occurs more fruit flavors come to the tongue, sweetening the brew up a bit, with all the while with the bready flavors growing slightly less intense. As these transitions occur, so too comes some other hoppy flavors of a resinous pine taste and a little bit of an earthy and hay-like flavor. While quite resinously and bitterly hopped, the sweeter flavors balance these out quite nicely and with some very light hints of booze hitting the tongue (for a 10.8 % abv. brew that is) one is left with a rather pleasant, quite hoppy ,flavor to linger on the tongue.

Mouthfeel – The body of the beer is on the thicker and creamier side with a carbonation level that is on the lower side. Both are fantastic for the big bitter and resinous hop flavors of the brew as well for making this one a good slow sipper of a beer as it should be.

Overall – Big, hoppy, resinous, slightly boozy, but still sorta smooth and quite drinkable. A nice big sipping IPA. Rather well done.

 

Thanks to Kegatron for sending me a message alerting me to this one being on tap.

A-Slightly hazed deep copper with a medium off-white head that dissipates to a thin cap and leaves ringing coating lace.

S-Tropical fruits overlying a sweet caramel base. Nice aroma but nothing mind blowing.

T-Massive bitter tropical fruit smack followed by a spicy blast with a mellowing malt sweetness. This one is not for the timid or weak of palate.

M-Medium to medium-heavy bodied, thick and viscous with lovely, long, lingering bitterness.

D-Whoa! A big, fat smack o' hops! I read it was 75 lbs worth in a 10 BBL batch. Bitter for sure but it doesn't go out of bounds. The alcohol is very well hidden and puts it into the realm of brews such as Hopsickle and PtY with massive hops, high ABV but little to no alcohol burn. Triple D certainly has more of a malt presence than the other two brews but it no less tasty. Impressive first time attempt at a massive hop/alcohol bomb!

A - cloudy tanish gold

S - the smell was amazing. very complex. floral, citrusy, pine and sweet.

T - one of those strange beers that doesn't taste much like it smells. the taste was a surprise. Slight hint of Belgian funk, mostly dry, quite a bit of hop, not too sweet. a bit of yeast and perhaps unmalted wheat?

M - pleasing, definite carbonation.

D - well, this beer is bigish, so while quite tasty, it is for slow enjoyment.

Referred to as their Double D on steroids.... and that's an apt description. It looks the same (cloudy, same medium-dark amber color, same small off-white but slowly diminishing head that leaves light rings as it goes down), it smells the same (actually it smells VERY similar to the Double D... same piney and grapefuity hops dominating with the light malts tones onderneath, but no indications of being an 'extreme' beer), and the taste is similar except huge! The initial taste was huge! A smack in the face. Hops, hops, alcohol and hops! But then, a few sips in, it it became more mellow... dangerously more mellow. The 12-ouncer was gone much faster than I thought... thought about having another, but I had to go with a weaker beer to have with my meal just so I was able to drive out of there an hour later.
I enjoyed that beer, that that's because I love beers that tests the limits. This beer isn't for the neophyte, rather it's for the beer adveture-seeker.

At the brewpub on 6/18/09.

A- Nice fluffy white head that leaves a medium amount of lacing throughout consumption. Orange-ish amber color looks really nice.

S- Piney and floral hops dominate with some malt underneath. Don't smell the Cascade that they say is in there.

T- Similar to the nose with spicy floral and pine hops, but in my opinion, way too sweet. Not terribly bitter like I expected (and hoped for) but overall not bad. Drinks fairly hot which I don't mind in other styles but not a fan of in my IPAs.

M- Feels really good on the tongue, nice amount of carbonation.

D- I dinged this pretty hard because I don't think the alcohol was masked very well, and I've had other IIPAs of similar strength where it was properly hidden.

Overall, not too bad but not as good as I was hoping for.

On tap @ the brewpub on 6/13/09. 12 oz pour served in a tulip glass.

Pours a deep, clear, golden amber with just over a finger of tight eggshell colored foam. Thin yet creamy looking retention, that blasts up into a frothy flareup which leaves some great looking lace which hangs in thick swathes down the sides of the glass. Yowzas! The aroma on this is just THICK with robust tropical fruits, with mango, pineapple, and grapefruit just being a few. Wow, this is delicious smelling. I'd just be happy with that, but there is more to this, with strongly floral, resinous, and spicy hops gliding over the top of the citrus, while an equally large layer of syrupy caramel sweetness hangs around underneath. A beefy warmth permeates the whole bouquet, giving this a heavy presence in the nose (and stinging the eyes just a tad as well).

A huge hop presence takes control in the taste, with an intensely piny and spicy bitterness which borderline assaults the palate. This mixes with the warmth of the body to lay with a massively lingering spicy bitterness that just dries the mouth out. Luckily, the hops don't get completely out of control, thanks to a thickly sweet backbone of bready caramel and that same awesome tangy blanket of tropical fruits. The mouthfeel is full bodied with a big mouth filling carbonation. Alcohol is very strong in this. Thankfully it doesn't make things undrinkable, as the all around hugeness of the flavors just won't allow it. It doesn't quite get stinging (OK, maybe it does a touch in the finish) but it does leave a hot and hazy feel on the breath. This is definitely a sipper though, with the alcohol showing itself more and more as this warms.

The Double D on steroids just about sums this up perfectly. Just MASSIVE hop character going on here but unfortunately it doesn't hide it's raging ABV quite as well as some other of these "Triple IPAs" that I've tried. Still, it's pretty awesome to see a local PA brewpub even try something like this. It's a sipper but a tasty one. Get up to Otto's and check it out!