Pours a rather unassuming caramel brown, unleashes a beautifully sweet smell, liked treacle and melted muscovado sugar.
It hits the tongue like a car crash, a speeding muscle car of sweet malt, big caramel, and an almost lemon sharpness. Like an explosion it then engulfs every corner of the mouth, like a rich barleywine, it's clear this beer is potent. Like Rum soaked sweet raisins this beer is rich and warming.
The finished is not a hell hopped IPA (they boast about dry hopping through out), no big dry hop smells or pine notes. It's sutbly bitter, but not enough to even attempt to compete with the rich boozey malt.
9/10 A rich, boozey malt epic. Potent, yet dangerously drinkable,
90 Minute IPA might be one of my all time ever beers. I think that the trend of severely hopped extreme IPA's and the hop head revolution have conditioned us to think that an IPA has to be an explosion of hops to the point of being unnecessary. What I loved about 90 Minute the first time I tried it was how balanced it was. There are plenty of hops and hop bite in there, they just balanced it with a really big malt profile and a little alcohol kick. The lack of balance (that grassy, overpowering hop aroma and taste) generally turns me off to IPA's in general. It is almost surprisingly sweet and not the expected bitter to the max.
ReplyDeleteIt’s angry. Highly bitter, beautiful golden color with a moderate head. This is what I would judge all IPA’s against (maybe the 60). It’s hard to find thanks to that show on Discovery which irritates me because this is the IPA I want whenever I’m eating something spicy. I wish it were thicker on the palate so the bitterness and general hoppiness would stick around a little longer, but other than that, I can’t find anything wrong with it.
ReplyDeleteTwo great comments gents, thanks, and welcome!
ReplyDeleteIts a superb beer for sure, I like the way that it is so rich and malty, as suggested above i think this is a different offering to many of the other strong IPAs that are dry hopped to an overloaded extent that you feel like you are chewing on raw hops (something I crave every so often I'll admit).
I'd be interested to taste this fresh from the brewery to see if it is more hoppy (Its just lost some of that on its journey back to England with me) or if its the powerful sweet malt that just nullifies the hops.
Balance is usually the key to a great ale.