El Segundo: Steve Austin’s Broken Skull Double IPA (USA: IIPA: 8% ABV)
Visual: Pale yellow gold clear body. Some small bubbled carbonation. Large loose mounded white head.
Nose: Pineapple. Peach syrup. Malt biscuits. Toffee. Apricot skins. Nettles. Popcorn hop character. Resin.
Body: Good bitterness. Greenery. Nettles. Malt drinks and Ovaltine. Resinous.
Finish: Nettles. Moderate bitterness. Somewhat resinous. Pine needles. Dry toffee. Malt drinks and Ovaltine.
Conclusion: Well this is better than the American Lager. I am starting off with a statement that, while it is technically true, is also starting off with a very low bar that thankfully it clears effortlessly.
The aroma is actually pretty darn good with pineapple freshness, peach sweetness alongside a fluffy hop character and a nice bit of resinous feel. Was this going to be a comeback king of a beer I was wondering?
The body has a good base to it as well – good bitterness and a chewy character – lots of greenery character from the hops and again nicely resinous. A very good base yes, but unfortunately doesn’t really build on that. It feels like it has laid the ground work for a very good beer, but then went off for a nap and forgot to come back and finish it.
This feeling continues into the finish. Nettles and other greenery notes, a good bitterness and a resinous style make for a solid start to a finish (if “start to a finish” even works as a sentence..) but again nothing on top of that. The malt has a slightly leaden ovaltine style taste – it has a nice chewy feel in the body, but not exciting flavor when that seeps away.
A pity, the aroma promises so much and it gets all the basic set up right, then does absolutely nothing with it.
Still better than the lager like…
Background: The second Stone Cold themed beer. After the disaster that was the first one I was a tad nervous about this one. Listening to WWE themed Nu Metal music didn’t help last time so I went to Arch Enemy: Deceivers for this one, much better music to put me in a better mood for drinking. I think The IPA is the mainstay of the Broken Skull line, and I do like a big double IPA, so I had slightly higher hopes for this one. Again this looks to have been contract brewed by Two Roads Brewing whom I know very little about. Anyway, again grabbed at Independent Spirit, who I get a lot of my beers from.
