Wednesday, May 27, 2009

Victory Hop Devil

I'm a fan of Victory brewing out of Pennsylvania. I've enjoyed every offering that I've had from them. Unfortunately for me they don't have a wide selection here in the Texas, that thankfully has changed. They have sent their special release beer Wild Devil to our fine state. The base of this beer is their Hop Devil IPA, then they infect with the wild yeast Brett.
The Beer: The beer weighs in at 6.7% and pours a cloudy brown with a thick off white head. Grapefruit hoppyness hits the nose on the first whiff, then a nice wave of barnyard funk takes over, caramel, wild flowers finish it off. The mouthfeel is thick and chewy, tart, effervescent. There is a nice grapefruit-yness here but it then moves towards the funky yeasty notes of Brett. There is a musty earthyness as well. The sense of taste is creamy, grapefruity, barny, citrusy, sour, rich. But somehow this beer does a good job of pulling everything together. The hops balancing out the funk of the brett, the brett balancing out the grapefruit in the hops. A very fine beer that gets an A- from me.

2 comments:

Machuca said...

I love this beer. With the hops, funk, malt perfectly balanced. It is one of the most balanced beers I have ever had. And it is almost compartmentalized. It is so easy to pick out each aroma and flavor. I need to get more...

Barleyvine said...

Machuca, Agreed, love to see how this thing ages as well...also not sure if this is just a short time release or something more permanent, but its damn good.