Captain's Reserve

The Beer Stats:

• Beer Name: Captain's Reserve IIPA

• Brewery: Captain Lawrence Brewing Company (New York)

• Style: IIPA

• ABV: 9%

• IBU: 80

• Pour Color: A darker yellow color that can be seen through.

      The head came up and stayed up for a good while. Lacing would happen all the way down this one. The scent is a little less then you would expect from a Imperial IPA. You get a nice fruity tangy scent off the top. It has passion fruit in there, but also something that gives the nostrils a sting. When tasting it you find another surprise. The alcohol of a 9% is there but is nearly covered up. It has a nice sweet malt backing that competes right with the hoppy spice/fruity flavor. This makes it easy to swallow the beer before the real bite. The malts again make an appearance in the swallow with a nice biscuit finish. This isn't your normal IIPA it's pretty easily drinkable!
      Hopstoopid ain't this smooth! I mean you get the realization that this, as you drink it, is a imperial. It's not that it lacks flavor... It just has a mellow alcohol flavor that doesn't need a huge backing to cover up. It's a really well ballenced beer that doesn't seem to go hop insane. The beer doesn't have a flat boring taste profile either. Mellow crisp and easy to drink. Really a great beer that not many can rival!

Rating: *****

Noble Rot

The Beer Stats:

• Beer Name: Noble Rot

• Brewery: Dogfish Head Brewing (Delaware)

• Style: ???... Saison?

• ABV: 9%

• IBU: 18

• Pour Color: A nice golden color, Almost a white sparkling wine look to it

      

      This one has a nice smell of fruit and a nice frothy head. Seemed extremely fizzy on the pour too. Face lifts it to me and... What the hell? I ordered a beer Face! This this is something completely different. This one drinks like a nice easy going wine. The grape taste is there, and having been soaked in a few wines, I can tell you this beer has that nice wine taste. The malts must be what makes the wine not have the after taste on the follicles you get from some wines. I really think this strange brew is comparable to some semi-sweet whites. 
      My local place, Custom Brewcrafters, makes a beer from 3 brothers brewery Riesling grapes that has a sort of flavor like this one. There's though is only a light beer so that the Riesling shines. This beer really is an amazing beer. I have tasted nothing like it and it really makes me re-evaluate wine in general. On top of that call it Noble Rot... Just amazing.

Rating: *****