Delicious! Having said that, it occurs to me that I should start picking some yucky beers to create a bit more of a spectrum in my burgeoning beer annals here. Either that, or I’m as good at picking bottles off a beer shelf as plucking apples from a tree. Now if we could only graft a bottle onto an apple tree, I’d be back to picking apples again tomorrow. But I digress.
The Devil’s Horn is another new IPA I picked up on my visit to Brouehaha and it doesn’t disappoint. That first taste is clean and fresh with that exquisite hop-forward taste of any good IPA. Very delicately micro-carbonated, this has great mouthfeel with the added punch of its 6.5% ABV. A few of these and you’d likely think you had been skewered on the devil’s horn indeed. The malts in this are certainly stronger than many IPAs I’ve tasted, giving the beer a rich caramelization that is tasted on the tongue and a dark amber-brown seen in the glass. The aroma is sweet and also of light caramels, like those little one’s Kraft used to make (do they still make them?) and without the headiness of a yeasty beer. However, the aftertaste of the hops in this brew stays on the tongue for a good while – a bit like the acidic taste left in the mouth after chewing on a tissue or piece of paper (yes, we’ve all done it). That might sound a bit unpleasant, but I think this would be a great summer-time IPA because it would likely keep you refreshed for a long while as you stretch lazy on your deck chair waiting for the ribs on your BBQ to cook. And I think it would pair exceptionally with the ribs when you took them off. And given that Ottawa received our season’s first dump of snow last night, I’ll take anything that transports me to a warmer day.
And to top it off, the beer comes with a cool label by Yannick Brosseau depicting the devil and his horn of brew which is counter balanced by a snazzy black cap adorned by a guardian angel making sure you don’t drink too many of these creatures. This is a good beer well worth trying.
Stats: IPA. 6.5% ABV. Saint-Jérôme, Quebec.
Colour: Dark Amber-Brown. Filtered.
Mouth Feel: Delicate carbonation with a long aftertaste.
78 points
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