Beer-a-Day

Beer 259 - Drake’s Hopocalypse Black Label

This was very much the year of the Triple IPA in the Bay Area. In fact, there was even a category for them at the yearly Bistro DIPA fest. Never has Pliny the Younger seen so many tough competitors at this level (including the recently featured Rodger’s Last Stand). Today’s beer was the special brewery only release at the Hopocalypse at Drake’s. It was a special version of the normal version called Hopocalypse Black Label.

This label is very similar to the “white label” version of Hopocalypse so at the risk of sounding redundant, I really like the label design quite a bit. The beer itself pours a clear rich golden-orange color with a finger of frothy white head. The head fades down fairly slowly leaving behind some thick lacing on the sides of the glass. The aroma is full of citrus and pine hops with grapefruit and orange and sweet caramel and biscuit malts with just a touch of alcohol. The aroma really just keeps getting stronger and stronger as the beer warms up a bit as well.

It starts off with a big citrus and pine hop flavor with lots of grapefruit and bitterness with some sweet caramel malt in the background. Through the middle, more pine and grassy hops flavors come through with some more bitterness and some biscuit malt. The finish is a mix of sweet malts with some residual sugar sweetness, citrus hops, and just a touch of booze coming though. It is full bodied with moderate carbonation. It finishes with a sweet, dry, bitter, and warming feeling.

This was really the year of the Triple IPA out here, and this is a beer that without a doubt held its own. The hop profile was so strong and rich, but the malt flavors, body, and touch of booze really pulled everything together and created a good balance of flavors from start to end. All in all, is the end is really beer, that would not be such a bad ending.