Hazards Triple IPA
Talisman Brewing Company

 

Tasted from a bomber bottle into a wine glass.

L - Deep gold to light copper color, slightly hazy but still bright. Off-white head is fairly thick and rocky; sticky and persistent.

S - Very strong hops aromas are fresh and straight out of the West Coast. Grapefruit, pine, pineapple, even low "cat pee". There is also some malt at a much lower level; bread and honey-like sweetness are almost buried under the assertive hops.

T - Extreme hops flavors of citrus, pineapple, grapefruit. Just like in the aroma, there is some bready malt sweetness struggling to show itself underneath.

F - Medium to heavy body. Moderate, creamy carbonation. Shockingly high hops bitterness almost burns the mouth. Some of the burn might be from the alcohol, although the beer does not come across as overly hot for an 11.3% beer.

O - This is a huge, assertive beer in a lot of ways. Triple IPA, indeed. Don't plan to drive and don't plan to taste any other beers after cracking this one open! It is still enjoyable, although I would prefer a smaller bottle for myself. The bomber size should really be shared.

 

stupidly strong, and its hard to hide that level of booze in a beer like this, but i liked it quite a lot nevertheless. cool label art, neat little brewery. golden brew with a nice head on it, smells like juicy oily hops, very west coast, simcoe/citra complex, although its hard to guess, and literally fusel alcohol, this one is hot. there is a nice malt sweetness to it, orange blossom honey note there, with a bright pale barley complexion and not much else there. the hops are where its at, tangerine and grapefruit notes, a little juniper or something too, not new, not super complex, but well enough constructed and it certainly scratches my itch for something hoppy. its fresh and its strong, i think this would do better in the 9% range, scale it back just a little bit, but this was ahead of modest expectations, thats for sure. i liked some of the other talisman beers better, but this is a better ipa than it gets credit for being. i like the body and the slick oily hops in it. fairly priced too, but im not sure i would buy this one again, it took me from zero to loose pretty quick...

The triple freaked me out at first, but it was absolutely delicious. This beer is phenomenal.