Loud Mouth Soup
Arrowhead Brewing Company

 

 

Appearance: Beware of the pour - it goes heads up very fast. Poured in to a Spiegelau IPA Glass. This beer pours a slightly cloudy orange-ish gold with plenty of fluffy foamy vintage white head generous retention and tons of wonderful lacing.

Aromatics: I smelled the citrus from at least 2 feet away, no need to stick my nose in it right off the hop. It has an odd aromatic that lingers between a nice sour citrus and a kind of floral-citrus dish soap. Bright and clean, with a staunch foundation of bread yeast with subtle hints of pine nettles.

Taste: I think the earthy pine bitter is most up front, the malts are very mild in comparison, which creates a very pronounced and very well earned hop IBU of 80. The tang I usually sense from the citrus zip just isn’t there though. However, I do get a rather unique blend of liquorice and roasted bark. I struggle to say it has a good balance of hop and malt, but the malt is there doing it’s darnedest to keep the hop in check. Now, I drank this one on the tail end of a 7.5% DIPA so I’m hoping that my tastebuds didn’t lose sensitivity between the two.

Feel: A super crisp - snap and pop in the carbonation, thats what kept me coming back for another sip. Firm middleweight, finishes very dry - the bitterness in the hops has quite the linger in the aftertaste.

Overall: A really nice DIPA if you are a devout hophead. Not too overdone with the hops, but has a but more linger than I like. Loved the frothy head retention and the creaminess is gave to each sip.

Pairing: The bitterness in this beer is a fairly aggressive palate. It would go good with light and subtly sweet like a ripe summer fruits (raspberries, strawberries, watermelon, or honey dew). If you want to enjoy this with a meal, I definitely think a BBQ glazed chicken with generous amounts of sauce and a bright and light coleslaw side.

 

 

 

650ml bottle, procured at the brewery a few days ago. At least this one didn't cost me sh*t tons of cash, amirite? Suitable imagery of a mad, mad, beer drinkin' dude on the label.

This beer pours a clear, medium golden amber hue, with three fingers of puffy, tightly foamy, and somewhat creamy off-white head, which leaves some splendid sudsy webbed lace around the glass as things slowly drop away.

It smells of bready, rather doughy and pastry-like caramel malt, generic citrus cream, Pine-Sol, and further leafy, floral, and certainly perfumed hops. The taste is more rather sweet grainy, bready caramel malt, concentrated pine resin, citrus-infused vodka, and a growing, but still nascent herbal, leafy, and floral bitterness.

The bubbles are pretty underwhelming in their low-fi frothiness, the body a solid medium-heavy weight for the style, and mostly smooth, just a wee alcohol ingress messing with things, including a near still-born creaminess. It finishes surely on the overly sweet side, the bakery-fresh malt and fruity (and more than a tad booze-afflicted) hops likely to feign culpability.

Overall, I'm getting a sort of disjointed vibe from first sip onwards with this one - the lack of balance from the way too meek hop bitterness doesn't help, and the alcohol always seems like it's about to burst onto the scene like the Kool Aid Man. Yeah, maybe a sh*t ton of refinement is what this not so loud mouthed fan is suggesting.

Very well balanced DIPA. Will definitely buy again.

A really serious offering from this relatively young brewery. Nice aromas and very well balanced between the hops and the malts. I will most definitely buy it again.