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.
Great story behind this brew. There is a guy in our brew club that was hired by Saranac because they wated to start this new micro-brew line of fine beers and they brought him on to give some insight.
This is one of the brew he has had a hand in on, as well as the reworking of some of the classic Saranac tastes. Don’t be surprized when you see more stuff like this and keep in mind that they had the foresight to hire a local homebrewer. Go Saranac!
That’s cool. If he’s in the Saranac area, maybe we can get him to sit down with Ron for a little interview.
Yea, if you are interested, I have his email. My email is on my website, send me a message and I will give you his email to set something up. He is a really good guy and a damn fine homebrewer.
Travis
pretty decent imperial ipa grapefruit, hoppy taste. copper color not as good as dogfish head 90 minute or aracadia hopmouth but still a great ipa and the price is good too will age a couple of these for spring.