I just love that Saranac is trying out new styles; they seem to be doing this more and more. You see, while I am a huge fan of the Saranac Pale Ale, (especially for its price) most of Saranac’s core line of beers are good, but not great. Their limited releases are better, and they seem to be getting better all the time. A great trend to have, I say! Recently, their Pumpkin Ale & Octoberfest have moved past good and toward great. Because most of these are limited release, I have missed out on sampling a bunch, but there is not much I can do about it. (They had an oatmeal stout that I missed.)

Now enter the Imperial IPA. It was $8.99 a six-pack, priced like the rest of the great beers. I really liked the label, it showed some class to what otherwise is a pretty mainstream logo. The beer poured much like all of the Saranac’s, with a good head and decent amount of carbonation.

The first thing I found lacking was the aroma. I expected to smell a handful of hops, but I didn’t. It didn’t have much more hop aroma than their Pale Ale; however, the hops are in there. 85 IBU’s of wonderful, domestic, hops! At 8.5% alcohol, you need to savor this beer and eat some sharp cheese or Buffalo Wings along with it.

I rate this at about a Hop-Talk 3 because it is too strong in alcohol to make it my regular, and I miss the hop aromas that should let my brain know about the bitterness I’m about to taste. But I did, really, really like it.

Saranac also has a newly released Black Diamond Bock, but I haven’t seen it yet in stores.