Double HUK Double India Pale Ale
The Fin City Brewing Co.

Appearance:
A hazy, burnished orange with an insubstantial, off-white head that exhibits mild retention and slippery rings of lace.

Bouquet:
Hearty, herbal hops so dense they’re nearly vegetal; the hallmark of a cookie-cutter, double IPA. Careful olfactory probing will net you the subtle essence of toasted, caramel malts.

Feel:
A semi-viscous medium body whose carbonation serves to ventilate those thick hops.

Taste:
An aggressive, double-fistful of dank hops and sweet grass. A rewarding trove of caramel malts lies beneath it with a fleeting nip of bitter pine in the aftertaste.

 

 

Poured from a 12 oz. can. Has a cloudy orange color with a 1/2 inch head. Smell is of caramel malts, pine. Taste is dank, pine, malts are present, balanced, moderate bitterness. Feels medium/full bodied in the mouth and overall is a good quality beer.

Can into a snifter appears a clear copper color with an offwhite head that fades leaving a full wall of lace.

Nose is herbal and dank before caramel toasty malt inclusion.

It tastes herbal with plenty of bitterness and resinous pine cling.

This is medium to fullet bodied with modest carbonation.

Bon Jour de la Bastille! Happy Bastille Day, everyone! Once more, my thanks go out to one of my local friends who CANtinues to gift beers to me. He, like just about everyone, is aware of The Bottle Backlog, so he keeps them to a minimum, but it is impossible to resist a CANQuest (tm) CANtribution.

From the CAN: "HUKgear.com" I want to see what they are about. The shrink-wrap label depicts a marlin both submerged & broaching the surface. As a retired sailor, I got to see all manner of sea life, including marlins. The most memorable, though, was on the ordnance pier in Diego Garcia, which stretched well into the Indian Ocean. We were forbidden from swimming outside of the (relatively) shallow lagoon, but fishing from the end of the pier was allowed. We were in the midst of a weapons offload & rather than going back into town, many of us go box lunches that morning with the intent of spending the Lunch chow break sleeping, sunbathing or fishing. A line was dropped with some evil-smelling chum and as many of us sat on the edge of the pier, dangling our legs over, a shadow appeared from beneath & we all jumped up. Suddenly, a Great White shark broached, maw open, allowing us to see an evil fate! It had been hooked & several of us had the presence of mind not to lose the pole, so we fought it until it finally snapped the heavy-test line & went back to its business, leaving all of us shaken & laughing. I hope that this beer leaves me shaking & laughing!

I Crack!ed the CAN open to reveal yet another brimful craft CAN, but since the current trend is non-filtration, I went with a very gentle Glug into the awaiting glass. Unbidden, I got just under two fingers of soapy, foamy, rocky, tawny head with limited retention; My efforts may have been wasted as the color was a crystal-clear Amber to Deep Amber-Light Copper (SRM = > 9, < 13), suggesting pre-CANning filtration. Nose was nothing but pine needles and caramel all day, yo! This should get me where I am going. Mouthfeel was only medium, light for the style. The taste was not just pine, it was downright resinous with cones & needles thrown in for good measure & then enrobed in caramel to keep the bitterness in check. Man, this is making me sweat! As a self-described, self-avowed hophead, this is what gets me where I am going, but not without a cost. It brought me right up to the edge of falling back into the hop abyss, but I managed not to fall in. Finish was dry, but the caramel malts helped to keep in from being eye-watering. Phew! I think that the coffee mess is open, so I am going to get a jolt of caffeine before I attempt anything else.