Thanks go out to mikey711 for the chance to try this one.
750 mL bottle, capped and bottled on 04/16/09 according to the yellow, dot-matrix style stamp on the neck.
Impressive looking pour with a very high, bone-white, two finger head sitting atop a golden-orange, clear body. Head retention is super and the lace substantial and sticky.
Nose is a combo of some resinous hops with some sinus clearing, sweet alcohol.
Like the regular 90 min, this is a pretty sweet beer. To be honest it treads a very fine line between that cloying sweetness, hot alcohol and palate stripping hop presence. From one mouthful to the next, the beer works and then doesn’t work in almost equal measure. When one makes a beer like this that is an occupational hazard and although understandable and an almost inevitable consequence of a beer of this nature, it does not help the long term drinkability. I enjoyed this – JUST! You HAVE to be in the mood for it. I get the feeling that if I were to visit this on 10 different occasions, half of the time I would not care for it much.
This reminds me a little of 120 min from years ago which may be a trick of the mind which in turn is being enhanced by the 750 mL presentation.
Interesting as usual from DFH.