Beer Rant

Well I promised to make the leap towards a hoppier brew, so we'll just call this one a transition beer. For those of you unfamiliar with Hair of the Dog Brewery in Portland, Oregon, they make some damn strong brews, intense, and extreme in every notion. All have a designation of being something unique with resemblence to many different flavors. Fred here is a Golden Ale, now some of you may be thinking typical blonde, blande ale associated with summer seasonals from most places. Well as I said they make intense beers, and this one definitely has an intense flavor comparable to maybe the Imperial Pilsner that Rogue makes as one of their special brews. This brew has the faint taste of pilsner, and rye, and the slight sting of hoppiness to it. The predominant flavor of it though is approaching something closer to an extremely brewed Imperial IPA, or even that of a Barley Wine. In fact it tastes very close to Bigfoot Barley Wine from Sierra Nevada due to the sweetness, and that Bigfoot is one of the hoppier tasting Barley Wines. Were it not for the faint, familiar Pilsner taste I would almost call it nothing short of a barley wine. The bottle says that the brew also includes Belgian candy sugar which may aid the cause of striving towards a barley wine. This extreme Golden Ale also tips the scales near Barley Wine limits, weighing in at a healthy 10% alc per volume. While there is a hoppy taste on the back end of tasting this beer, the high alcohol content lets you know your getting a sweet taste right up front. This beer was a very pleasurable experience, almost like solving a mystery of what kind of flavors you can pick out from such a strong showing. I'm not a big Golden Ale/Pilsner fan most of the time, but it's beers like Fred here that give me hope. So enjoy a good smack to tastebuds brought to you by a quirky little brewery in downtown Portland. PS plan on not driving for a little while, and have food before or prepare for a good shot to the nervous system.