Phillips Amnesiac Double IPA

It's been a weekend of laboring on our new house, cleaning and painting.  Thanks to all that lent a hand with the revolting work of scrubbing years of nicotine from the walls and ceiling.  Hard work deserves a quality brew, lets hope this specimen stands up.

I was lucky to recently have one of my best friends move back to Edmonton from BC along with his wonderful family, and to make it even better he brought me a bottle of Phillips Amnesiac Double IPA to sample.  It sounds like Phillips Brewing Company out of Victoria BC has been producing some extremely good beer.  The Hop Circle IPA has been getting some great reviews, and my buddy Dan of small beer had the chance to tour and sample some of Matt Phillips newer brews with great words to say.  The brewery was started by one man, with a passion for quality beer and a stack of maxed out credit cards.  For the full story please refer to Dan's wonderfully written 3 part story, as he's done a substantial amount of work and research into the history and future of the brewery.  I vaguely remember trying some Phillips products while I lived in Victoria, but I do remember the absolute dedication people in the city hold for this brewery and their craft.

Phillips Amnesiac DIPA pours a hazy copper orange with an impressive frothy head which lazily fades away leaving heavy lacing.  Bright citrus and piney hops with sweet apricot and pineapple notes.  The flavor is pleasantly creamy, smooth and drinkable.  Sweet caramel malt base followed by citrusy floral hops with a surprisingly mild bitter aftertaste.  For an 8.5% ABV brew the alcohol content is hidden well until it's to late.  A little on the thin side though, for what it is.  The flavors are great, but they don't stick around very long.

A nice beer, mild but delicious.  I'd be happy to revisit a bottle of Amnesiac sooner than later.  I wish I had payed more attention to Phillips beer during my time in Victoria.  That being said, I wish I had payed more attention to all of the quality breweries in Victoria, or British Columbia for that matter.  Slowly they make appearances here in Alberta, unfortunately too slow for my liking.

Tree Brewing Company Hop Head Double IPA

I am extremely eager to crack this bottle tonight. In the past year or so I have developed a love for hops, and extreme beers. I've guess I've noticed the DIPA's around, but for some reason hadn't picked one up. I've tried a couple of extreme hop beers by renowned craft breweries Dogfish Head and Rogue, which are amazing by the way. But I guess you could say I didn't really know what a Double IPA actually was. After browsing on wikipedia, I've learned that a DIPA is brewed the same way as a standard IPA but typically with 50% more malt and 100% more hops. They tend to have an alcohol content higher than 7% and for obvious reasons finish extremely bitter. I was given a good list of DIPA's to look out for but unfortunately my local beer store (who currently carries 681 different brews) didn't have a single one of them. They had a nice little selection of DIPA's and I decided this particular beer would be the one for tonight.

Tree Brewing Company hails from Kelowna BC and has been operating since 1994. The Hop Head DIPA is a limited Edition brew hopped to the max with five different hops all grown in Washington state. The wort is dry hopped and aged for three weeks, allowing the beer to ripen to a bitter perfection. It pours from the glass a foggy amber haze (unpasteurized, unfiltered) and settles with a good fingers worth of frothy white bubbles. As soon as I poured it from the bottle the aromas smacked me right in the face, waking up the senses and set my brain into battle mode. The rich fragrance is loaded with grapefruit and lemon notes, a vaporous fruit salad. It has a wondrous hoppy floral nose. There seems to be a lot going on and I've only just smelled it. I wonder if you can get drunk just from breathing it in?

The bitter hops wash over your tongue quite aggressively but the beer is balanced out well and the sweet malts rush in to save your mouth from puckering right off your face. You can taste the booze, but it's not disagreeable. I'll be feeling this one when we're done. Once the bitterness fades away it leaves a lemony aftertaste and you can still taste sweet roasted malts right up until you take your next drink. I like this Double IPA stuff. I think we'll be talking about them more as we go along.

From what I'm reading, Vancouver Craft Beer Week is a complete success. Almost every single food/beer event is sold out, and fast! It breaks my heart that Alberta doesn't have anything like this. Unfortunately it seems Albertans are quite happy with drinking fermented corn piss, or anything that comes along with an annoying in your face TV commercial. Big trucks and shitty beer. Good times.

Here's another spot CBC did for the Vancouver Craft Beer Week. Enjoy.
CBC News - Vancouver Craft Beer Week