90 Minute Imperial IPA

Dogfish Head Craft Brewer – Milton, Del.

Style: Double India pale ale

Serving temperature:  50˚F

Alcohol content: 9% abv

            After centuries of following recipes, brewers have pretty much settled into a routine when it comes to hops: Boil them at the beginning of the brew to extract bitterness, toss them in at the end for aroma.

            What would happen, Dogfish Head founder Sam Calagione wondered, if you added them throughout the entire 90-minute brewing process?

            Welcome to 90 Minute Imperial IPA.

As you’d guess, this inventive India pale’s hop regimen produces an a bitter bite. But it’s intensely complex with an exceptional malt balance that provides unusual (for this style) fruit-like flavors. The aroma that rises from its creamy head is of dried fruit with a touch of citrus. A good, full-bodied sip assaults the palate with a perfect balance of teeth-chattering hops and smooth, caramel-like malt.

            As if all those hops weren’t enough, devotees can also track down this beer served on draft through the infamous Randall the Enamel Animal, which Calagione describes as an “organoleptic hop transducer module.” It’s a 3-foot-long plastic cylinder stuffed with a half-pound of whole hops that’s attached to a keg’s serving line.

-Joe Sixpack