Brew: Double Crooked IPA
Brewed By: Dark Horse Brewing (Marshall, MI)
Style: Double/Imperial IPA (12.0% ABV)
A gift from a fellow beer lover in Chicago, this came to me a few weeks ago. Somewhat excited for this one as I hadn’t seen it on my local liquor store shelves before so I was glad to have something I couldn’t get on my own. I haven’t even had the Crooked IPA, so the not double one, before so I don’t really know what to expect for this.
It poured out a dark malty color with some red mixed in there. A deep amber if you wanted to go further. There was a fair amount of head on my glass because it got a little bumpy in the car when I was bringing this one home, my guess is that the abundant head is not normal. This is a fair amount darker than I was anticipating for something that claims to be 98 IBU’s and a double IPA, looked a little more like an amber or red ale.
The smell is a mix of hops and malts. There are obviously a ton of hops in this brew that is apparent right off the bat but the malts seem to steal the show overall, there is more sweetness to begin with and residually than I think I would have guessed or expected. There is some definite caramel and toffee smells coming off this beer.
The taste is a bit different, right off the bat there is a ton of bittering hops that take over your mouth. The pine and grassy hops are right there to greet you at the door, but after that initial hop bombing of your taste buds the malt sweetness comes in. I would have expected the hops to stand out on their own especially the way the sip started but the malts really begin to dominate after that first split second. There are lots of hops, they are very bitter that still left me yearning for more hops that would sort of clean up this hop mess that Dark Horse has created. It seems to be one big syrupy soupy hop mess that doesn’t or cant find its own character of being either a true hop bomb, like Hop Stoopid, or a malt forward IPA. The bitterness isn’t balanced and the malts seem to show up and stick out like a sore thumb with no particular place to be.
Average Bro's Brew Review 
I like to let this beer age for a year or two and it turns into a really nice barleywine.
that probably would have mellowed it out a little and blended some of the harsher flavors in there. I know i can get dark horse in MN, i will look for that one and keep hide it from myself for a year or so when i do get my hands on it.