The Perfect Disguise
Dogfish Head Craft Brewery

Bottle from Brewers Haven. Medium to dark golden, small foamy head. Musty, fruity aroma, papaya. Taste is more tropical fruit, nice juicy feel. Bittersweet finish.

pours a hazy, gold amber. nose; lemon, clean grain/barley, & citrus hops. taste; mid malt (german chit malt), light grapefruit, stone fruit, peach, & again with the citrus hops. semi-dry finish and some farmhouse-esque hay on the backside. medium mouthfeel & carbonation. this is a kolsch base beer that was perverted into an ipa by the wizards at dogfish head. feels like a saison & easy tropical dipa rolled onto one. cheers!

 

 

Pours a two-finger off-white head that fades slowly leaving a good lace. Almost clear amber color. Good carbonation and medium bodied. Citrus nose mostly grapefruit and flavor is slightly hoppy citrus. Reasonable DIPA. Higher ABV (8%) is hidden. $2.69 for a 12oz bottle from Beverage Warehouse Winooski, VT.

 

 

A Kolsch beer hopped to become an imperial IPA? Dogfish head strikes again!

Pours a chill-hazed deep gold producing 1.5 fingers of frothy/soapy, white head. Abundant effervescence rises from the bottom of the glass. Aromas of stone fruit, citrus and berry mixed with bread and biscuit malts greet the nose. Taste is stone fruit, citrus, tropical fruit, melon and berry combined with biscuit, caramel and honey. The finish is earthy, grassy and herbal. There is a spiciness throughout with a little astringency in the aftertaste. Mouthfeel is medium to full-bodied with moderate carbonation, smooth and creamy with a fine prickle in the finish.

Overall I'd say this is better than good but not great. Good enough to buy it again however. I suggest you try it.

Clear, bright golden color, slim white head.

In the nose: Popping with tropical notes and citrus, too. Clean and cool.

In the mouth: A flood of flavors, a blast of bitter and fruit. Starts fruity, ends dry. Crisp, smooth, with plenty of bitter. I went into this forgetting what I knew, with only the label art as my guide. Hops lurking inside a jolly German? Now, I sneak peek and I remember, it's the double IPA with kolsch yeast, right? Yeah, and it's working. Getting some stone fruit, some tropical, and plenty of bitterness.

I'm liking this a lot. Dogfish is at it again, and my cap is off to them for continuing to innovate.

 

I got a bottle of this beer off the single shelf from a beer store in LaCrosse, WI. It poured a clear golden with white head that is leaving a nice ring lace. The scent had tropical fruit notes. The taste was nicely balanced and easy to drink with tropical fruit peel presence. The mouthfeel was medium in body with good carbonation. Overall it is a solid beer.

 

 

 

The Pefrect Disguise pours a bright hazy color, not much head. Overrly sweet aroma, lots and lots of peach notes. Flavor is very sweet, lots of citrus, lots of peach. Good body and feel. Overall, very sweet, lots and lots of fruit mixing.

Initial reaction to a 12 fl oz brown glass bottle:

Has a nice hop profile but the crispness of its mouthfeel - while indeed more true to a Kölsch - isn't what I want in an IIPA. Peach-forward with peach's cousin - apricot - taking 2nd place in the mix. Subsidiary hop flavours include floral hop flavour, citrus, and some acidic but vague fruit (particularly in the aftertaste).

A bit warmer booze-wise than I'd like...it's noticeable and makes it more a sipper than an easy drinker even in Summer heat.

I want it creamier and softer with less carbonation and crispness. Some minerality is present that I don't dig.

Malt backbone is odd...not your usual 2-row/pale malt and not the new school wheat/oat approach. It's not sweet necessarily but nevertheless tastes kind of honeyed or almost cereally - but without the graininess that descriptor would suggest. Honeycomb cereal comes to mind, which isn't really the malt backbone I want in a peach-forward (I)IPA.

Weirdly aggressive with a bit of a lopsided hop profile...structurally speaking, most of the oomph of its hop flavour is towards the back end of the beer (in the 3rd act and aftertaste).

Scintillae of vanillin. Papaya. A hint of lemony twang. Ample rind and concomitant bitterness.

They bill this as tasting like gooseberries. Am I the only one willing to admit I don't know what the dickens a gooseberry tastes like?

Not as drinkable as it should be. Any German Kölsch is more drinkable, and most of the better widely distributed IIPAs (e.g. Lagunitas Sucks) are as well despite being higher in ABV. I think the malts they chose don't shield the booze from the palate as well as conventional malts tend to, so there's a tradeoff to their choices.

The Kölsch/IIPA hybrid they're going for feels more like a marketing angle than a viable and/or inspired decision, but then this is Dogfish Head we're talking about...they probably put more effort into their appealing and colorful labels than they do their recipes.

Ultimately, its booziness is just tough to get past for me especially given the wealth of equal and higher ABV IIPAs that handle that facet a hell of a lot better. The disguise in The Perfect Disguise is for its yeast - not its alcohol content - and that isn't a good thing. But hey, they got Kölsch yeast to shit out enough ethanol to make this 8% which is impressive on a purely academic level.

C / AVERAGE

 

A strange brew that’s hard to pinpoint, The Perfect Disguise by Dogfishhead Brewing smells and tastes like one would expect a Kölsch to smell and taste. It’s subtle and malt forward, leaving a nice feel in your mouth after a long sip. Easy to drink. So much so that you’ll need to remind yourself of it’s 8% ABV.

DATE: May 31, 2020... OCCASION: having had a nice time with Uncle Joe, Aunt Karen, Sasha and Jordan as they finished their goodbye tour, I warm up on a cold night with a beer I bought as much for the label (a DFH beer, yes, but why the cuckoo clock?) as for its content... GLASSWARE: Corsendonk stem... pours a vigorous, hazy, golden orange body whose upswept bubbles create a staunch two-fingered perfection of snow white mesa--frothy and impenetrably thick... its first waft is resinous, with noble hops suggesting something clean and drinkable (the "disguise?")... grapefruit, tangy lemon, and pine also enter in, but this has a subdued approach overall--definitely subtle for an 8% ABV... the first sip surprises with a clean, medium-bodied palate, plucking at the teeth, enlivening the mouth, yet leaving the throat with a fraction of its weight; where did it go? a dry finish that still shakes with its 70 IBUs... the flavor profile is a balance of sour and sweet: resin, grapefruit, berry and lemon clash with cracker and sweet malts, which makes the impact strong but withdrawing at the same time... each sip is like the crash and ebb of a hop wave, unique and shifty... this checks off the DIPA boxes but also refreshes... a worthwhile offering...

Another awesome DIPA brew from DFH! Delicious $17.00 6pack

Will get more if its ever in stock again

Bottled 1/3/20

Always happy to try something from DFH that’s new to me, this one looks like it could be right up my alley. Haven’t had many kolschs before, but I get the general idea, should make for an interesting hybrid with an IPA

Pours a cloudy gold with just a finger of soapy white head, fades at a decent pace and leaves minimal lacing

That’s definitely crisp in the nose like a kolsch, but with the tropical hop aromatics of a DIPA. I pick up pineapple, papaya, resiny/piney hops, and white bread

The taste does a better job of blending the two styles together, starting with juicy tropical hops that carry notes of fresh (almost tart) pineapple with mango and a touch of vanilla/cream. The sip ends with a sweetness akin to honey, with the hops and malt in good balance

Mild carbonation and a mediun body lead this to drink relatively smooth for the abv, finishes somewhere between drying and sticky, a hint sweet and a little bitter

This is definitely one of the more interesting concepts for a beer, but when you sit back and disregard what it’s trying to be, this is a damn good, well balanced DIPA with west coast tendencies. I’ll grab more

 

 

 

 

Poured from a bottle into a pint glass. Pours orange yellow with a small white head. Smells of citrus and tropical hops. Tastes of citrus hops with nice tropical notes. Beer is light bodied and easy drinking, especially for an imperial, good carbonation. Overall, a very good beer.

 

 

 

 

very smooth double ipa fresh taste. great aftertaste

delivers completely as advertised: it's a kolsch with the DDIPA treatment.
and. it. slays.
way to go dudes. killer.

if you like the two things than get this thang

 

 

Emerald orange in body with white frothy head. Aroma of clementines, lemon, mango, grass. Tastes of clementines, lemon, mango, grass, pine, and light booze. Medium bodied with medium carbonation.

 

The beer poured golden in color, and the body was slightly hazy. The head was a little small, peaking at one finger thick. The aroma was very hoppy, yet somehow delicate. The hops smelled gently spicy, and this was followed by a whiff of mango and pineapple. The taste was citric up front with lemony tang. The beer was more bitter mid palette, and the finish was somewhat spicy. The drinkability was very good, the mouthfeel was medium thick, and the carbonation a little prickly. This was a very balanced DIPA. I haven't had a Kolsch in quite a while, so not sure if this was very close to that, but I did like it a lot.