Double Posting

Today it's time for an unusual event - a double posting. Since these are both beers that it's not terribly likely that I'll get again, I wanted to make sure I got these up. To keep this short I'll just jump into it, but today we have Half Acre Daisy Cutter and Three Floyds Dreadnaught.

Daisy Cutter is a pale ale, a style I normally don't care for all that much as most examples I've seen tend to have very little hop quality. However this one was pretty highly rated, so I wanted to see what it was all about.

The aroma was very similar to pellet hops that I've encountered in home brewing. There was a bunch of citrus, grass, flowers, and spice. I didn't actually get any noticeable malt quality.

It appeared a somewhat cloudy golden color with a thin, white head. As I progressed through the glass, I noticed a ton of lacing.

At first I tasted a bit of caramel and bread. It's a pretty delicate sweetish flavor that is pleasantly drinkable. This is followed up by substantial citrus hop flavor with some pepper. The bitterness lingers a while as well.

It's got a light body in the mouth, combined with a moderate-high carbonation level. It's clean and moderately dry as well.

Overall, this was a very good pale ale. Considering that I normally don't like the style much, I really enjoyed this beer. I'd say this is probably one of the best pale ales I've had yet.

Dreadnaught on the other hand is a Double/Imperial IPA. The aroma is a dense mix of hops,

with citrus and resin. I also thought it was a little woody.

Its appearance is a bit darker than Daisy Cutter, but still within the realm of golden, and again has some haze to it. There is less head though, only a dusting of bubbles that seem to be mor

e off-white.

There's a little sweetness right up front, evoking a memory of honey. I thought I also got a little pine. In the back of the mouth there's a strong bitterness that seems pleasant and fitting for the style. There was some citrus in the middle, but for me at least it seemed obscured by the mix of sweet and bitter. There's just a ton of hops packed into this beer. It's kind of like a mix between an East Coast and West Coast IPA.

The beer has a moderate body, combined with a fairly high level of carbonation. I noticed some stickiness from the resins in my mouth as well. There was also just a little warmth in the throat as it went down.

I enjoyed this DIPA quite a bit. There's just so much hop flavor going on in this beer. In fact, there's a level of bitterness that doesn't really make it into that many beers, even when loaded down with hops. I wouldn't say I prefer it to Hopslam which is fortunate for me since Hopslam is a lot easier to get around here. Still I wouldn't ever turn this beer down.

- Adam