Sorachi Ace Hopped Imperial Brown IPA - Sound fun?

You might remember I wrote about a beer I brewed with Dean from Mr Foley's. This post isn't about that beer. It's about a beer Dean brewed then asked me to make the label for. I'm writing about it because it's great, and I want to heap some pressure on him to a) make it again and b) make a professional brewery have a go at a similar beer.

It's a Sorachi Ace Hopped Imperial Brown IPA, around 7.6% ABV, and it rocks.

When I tasted this at Deans, it blew me away. A genuinely crazy mix of funky fermented orange and dark chocolate, with a whiff of coconut and Cointreau in the aroma. Easy drinking for the strength, but with good body, yet big and bitter in this finish. I thought it was one of the best black IPA's I'd ever had.

The beer I'm drinking now isn't quite the same. For a start the yeast that fizzes up through the neck (after 5 or so seconds of wasted beer I decided to risk it and get a bottle on the end of the fizz) has changed the colour from black to the labels promised brown. The aroma isn't as sharp and there is a definate, well, yeastyness.

But do you know what? It's still a good beer.


The furious secondary fermentation means that there's so much carbonation in the beer that the Yeast and sediment mixes into the beer and really changes the flavour. I've got nothing against yeast in my beer if it's meant to be there, but this isn't a wheat beer, and the yeast subtracts rather than adds.

It's a shame, but I tell you what, this beer needs to be brewed again, with a few tweaks, and it will blow you away. Even as it is (and I'm told a few bottles aren't over lively so if you've got hold of a bottle you may be lucky) it's a fantastic beer.
I've got one bottle left. Do you think it'll get more less furiously fizzy over time?


As I mentioned. The beer is all Deans handy work, but the label, I did that. What do you reckon?


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