Ding Points: 63.00

Pour: 70.00, Nose: 70.00, Palate: 60.00, Mouth: 60.00, Global: 60.00

Tasting Notes:

Pours with a slightly washed out, pale gold color with some haziness but not chill haze. A large, pitted, two finger head that looks good, but fades quickly. However, some nice, sticky lace in a west coast hop-based manner.

Lagunitas, Lagunitas Sucks Holiday Ale

The nose offers a big tangerine and grapefruit note which carries through, into the taste. This is an extremely fruity beer indeed.

The hops develop a very large aromatic element which finishes with some metal. The aftertaste is a little buttery with the diacetyl coming through in the finish quite strongly. It doesn’t detract too strongly from the beer for me since this is still a very, very fruity beer indeed, but it does not make the brew feel clean at all. Not especially well defined really, and that detracts from the fruity element (that I generally like). Medium to low carbonation and a slight viscous feel in the mouth.

beeradvocate.com has this listed as an American Strong Ale, but this is a fruity, American IPA in terms of its general taste profile. I went back and forth a bit on this one. A first the fruit elements seemed very nice, but it quickly got muddled and tired for me, and at the end of 12 oz frankly I had tasted more than I wanted. Strange, and not a beer that I would want a sixer of.

Other: 7.85% ABV.