Thick gold foil on the neck of the capped 750 mL bottle. Thanks go out to BEERchitect for the gift.

Cloudy, honey colored pour with excessive carbonation. The carbonation is too much for me, too much for the style and frankly a little annoying. Some sticky lacing and some foamy head but it is a little inconsistent. The carbonation imparts a prickly mouthfeel that I don’t much care for.

This is a VERY typical over-the-top American Double IPA. Huge, west coast style piney and resinous hops that are frankly a little out of balance. While this is NOT a bad beer, for me it typifies a lot of what is wrong with the American version of this style. Hops way too green and out of whack and it seems big for the sake of being being and lacks balance and subtlety. I did enjoy it a little more with a small knob of strong English cheddar – it seemed to mellow out the mouthfuls.

The kind of beer I CAN drink, but it lacks craft in my opinion. The kind of thing I feel I could knock up in the basement myself.