Sneaky Pete: Coming in March!

I was contacted by one of my friends that lives in Virgina and I was asked if I knew of anyone that did beer reviews. Of course I couldn't let this opportunity slip away, so here is my very first free beer review!

As mentioned, my friend sent me this beer with hopes of getting the word out about it. The only thing, it's not going to be available in the Florida Panhandle. But not to say it might not cross your path.

Sneaky Pete Imperial IPA is the name and it was brewed jointly by Laughing Dog Brewery in Sandpoint, ID and Kysela Père et Fils, LTD.This is an interesting concept to me. Laughing Dog brewed the beer exclusively for the distributor. I think that is a great partnership and I think there should be more cooperation between breweries and distributors. It seems sometimes there are walls between breweries and distributors. But enough about the where the beer came from. Let's get to the beer.

This is an Imperial IPA, which is usually an interesting taste. This is basically an American hybrid, if you will. This is an IPA, which is an English oriented style, with an American twist. What makes it Imperial? More alcohol! More hops! More of everything! An Imperial IPA is basically an IPA on steroids.
When I poured this beer, I knew it wasn't going to be a normal beer. This was a beer on steroids. As you can see in the picture, this beer is amber in color almost a fine ruby color. I think it's gorgeous. When you first smell this beer, you automatically can tell it's a malty beer. You can immediately smell the rye malts. After tasting, you can really pick up the five different hops. Reading the list of hops used in this beer, It appears that Simcoe is the dominate hop in the profile, which would explain the pine and citrus characters. I was sent two bottles, so I shared one with my buddy Tony. We both agreed that it finishes a little hot, but it is a 10%er. Meaning it's got room to grow.

I would be interested into seeing how this beer ages. Call me crazy, but I'm one of those that likes to see how some beers age and I think this one would mellow out very nicely with a few months on it.

I think Laughing Dog did a fine job brewing this beer and I hope I get a chance to try more of their beers, especially "The Dogfather" Imperial Stout. I could picture me drinking that one while sitting is a leather chair eating a nice big plate of pasta.

And thanks agian to Kysela for giving me a chance to taste and write about this beer.

Breckenridge

Greetings from wonderful Breckenridge,CO! For those of you who don't who, I married a wonderful woman this past Saturday and now we are in Colorado doing some skiing.

Breckenridge is a cool little town. You can walk everywhere and the lifts are just minutes away. We skied today, which was our first day. We didn't have any problems with altitude sickness, but I could tell that moving fast wasn't a good idea because I lost my breath easy.

But this is a beer blog, not a altitude sickness blog, so let's get to the beer. After dealing with -10 - 2 degree temperatures all day and sliding around on my head in the snow, it's time for a beer! I am now sitting on the couch with my feet on the coffee table drinking a Vanilla Porter from Breckenridge Brewery.
This beer pours a brown to dark brown with a light tan head. Not much head, which indicates it's lightly carbonated. As mentioned before the altitude will do weird things to a human. And I have noticed that heavily carbonated beers, such as pale ales, will give you a fizzy coating on your tongue. It's weird! I was drinking a local Pale Ale yesterday at a Mexican joint and it just had this weird fizzy thing going on. I guess I will need to adapt? Sorry for the rant, but you had to know why I like the low carbonation of this beer.

The next interesting thing about this beer is the vanilla. Sometimes vanilla can overpower a beer to the point that it is ALL vanilla, but this one is not. It is balanced very well.

When you first smell this beer, you don't smell a ton of vanilla, well I don't. I smell roasted malts that also have a toasted character to it, with a hint of vanilla. The taste is the same way. I get a huge toffee/caramel front with a vanilla finish. Does any of that make sense?

Oh well, I have finished my brew and my bride is waking up from her nap. So, I guess it's time for Happy Hour at the Mexican joint again!

Later

First Colorado Beer Score!