New year, new beer

Oh hai. Jubilee has some new craft beers in. They has a flavour.

I was seduced by the name of Sierra Nevada's seasonal ESB, 'Early Spring Beer'.

They proudly tout it as 'combin[ing] the best of English tradition with West Coast style... a blend of malts featuring British-grown Maris Otter is balanced with the earthy spiciness of hand-selected English and US hops. The ale is left unfiltered, which enhances mouthfeel and hop aroma creating a slightly reddish-copper hue'. What this actually equates to is a beer that in many respects is unnervingly similar to '70's stalwart Double Diamond. The semioticians (or possibly child therapists) among my readership may be interested to learn that the legendary brand's distinctive logo was the first symbol that I recognised as a child, doubtless at some considerable speed, and probably from the back seat of a dodgy Mark 3 Cortina. Apparently it was revived in bottled form in the 1990s for the export market. Perhaps it is still available, but I don't care enough to find out. What this train of thought has led me to, however, was the recollection that I once saw a badge at a CAMRA festival in the late 1980s that read 'DD is K9P', which I thought most drole at the time and laughed uproariously at. I was probably pissed, of course.

Dogfish Head brewery's 90 Minute Imperial IPA is a notable entry in the strain of mutant hyper-hopped beers that American craft brewers seem to be favouring at the moment. It is a hefty 9% ABV, but still eminently drinkable, and surprisingly dry in flavour, if not in finish. It gets its name from a ninety minute hop addition during the fermentation, supported by the addition of a considerably amount of barley and dry hopping during the finishing. Dogfish also do a completely mad 120 Minute Imperial IPA which is an unbelievable (and probably undrinkable) 20% ABV. It might just about pair with very strong cheese or a dense fruit cake, but I'd struggle to think what else you could consume it with, and it would be pretty grim on its own, I would have thought.

Dogfish can send me a six-pack for review if they wish, however.