12 oz bottle from Bloomington, IN by way of Penney – many thanks!
Nice clarity in the dark orange body that has a good head initially and a decent head. However, the head fades quite quickly and leaves very little lace.
OK, it’s called Alpha King for a reason, and there is not much subtlety in the nose or the tastes in this beer. Because of the enormous hop presence, this beer does drink MUCH more like an IPA than a “Pale Ale”. Outside of the hop presence there is very little else EXCEPT the fairly large does of diacetyl. That combination seems to lead to a pretty one dimensional beer – it’s not a bad beer, but it IS pretty one dimensional. The lack of subtlety and complexity surrounding this beer slightly surprises me given its high ranking in the BA top 100 – strange, perhaps some “overrating” going on here?
A bit slick in the mouth too. Anyway, big fresh pine hop notes that remind me of toilet cleaner aromas and you get the picture. Just an average beer for my money and that whole diacetyl thing really hurts this brew.