Poured into your every day pint glass, Up the Creek pours a dark burgundy with a thin beige head. One whiff of this reveals intense, sweet malts on the nose. Taste follows the nose in a big way! The malts are the core of this brew, with some nice fruity notes throughout. Pretty significant booze taste in there too, but not overwhelming and certainly not as much as it could be for its content. Here is my dilemma. Where are my hops? Hidden within all that malty goodness there are hints of piney hops, but not what you would expect from an extreme IPA, or even a less than extreme IPA. In their attempt to sink the status quo with their IPA, I think Thomas Creek accidentally made a really great Barleywine instead. Not a bad thing by any means, just not what I was expecting. BUT, it is their beer, so I will let them make the call on what category it belongs in. Try this IPA if it is available around you. If not, maybe ask for it in a trade. It is worth a taste for sure. Now, since this IPA breaks all the IPA rules, I am going to break one as well, and stash one or two of these away to see how they age. My guess: As gracefully as Sierra Nevada's Bigfoot.
Friday, September 20, 2013
Thomas Creek's Up the Creek "Extreme IPA"
I am currently on a mini vacation down in South Carolina, so I naturally checked out the beer store to see if there were some southern brews that I had never seen before. Among others, I picked up a four pack of Thomas Creek's Up the Creek. It boasted of being an extreme IPA, and at 12.5% ABV, I sure believed it. And with a catch phrase of "Sink the status quo" I was pretty sure this was a brew for me. I was right, but it was not at all what I expected.
Poured into your every day pint glass, Up the Creek pours a dark burgundy with a thin beige head. One whiff of this reveals intense, sweet malts on the nose. Taste follows the nose in a big way! The malts are the core of this brew, with some nice fruity notes throughout. Pretty significant booze taste in there too, but not overwhelming and certainly not as much as it could be for its content. Here is my dilemma. Where are my hops? Hidden within all that malty goodness there are hints of piney hops, but not what you would expect from an extreme IPA, or even a less than extreme IPA. In their attempt to sink the status quo with their IPA, I think Thomas Creek accidentally made a really great Barleywine instead. Not a bad thing by any means, just not what I was expecting. BUT, it is their beer, so I will let them make the call on what category it belongs in. Try this IPA if it is available around you. If not, maybe ask for it in a trade. It is worth a taste for sure. Now, since this IPA breaks all the IPA rules, I am going to break one as well, and stash one or two of these away to see how they age. My guess: As gracefully as Sierra Nevada's Bigfoot.
Poured into your every day pint glass, Up the Creek pours a dark burgundy with a thin beige head. One whiff of this reveals intense, sweet malts on the nose. Taste follows the nose in a big way! The malts are the core of this brew, with some nice fruity notes throughout. Pretty significant booze taste in there too, but not overwhelming and certainly not as much as it could be for its content. Here is my dilemma. Where are my hops? Hidden within all that malty goodness there are hints of piney hops, but not what you would expect from an extreme IPA, or even a less than extreme IPA. In their attempt to sink the status quo with their IPA, I think Thomas Creek accidentally made a really great Barleywine instead. Not a bad thing by any means, just not what I was expecting. BUT, it is their beer, so I will let them make the call on what category it belongs in. Try this IPA if it is available around you. If not, maybe ask for it in a trade. It is worth a taste for sure. Now, since this IPA breaks all the IPA rules, I am going to break one as well, and stash one or two of these away to see how they age. My guess: As gracefully as Sierra Nevada's Bigfoot.
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My dad gets this beer everytime he comes down to see me and takes 2 cases home with him. He loves it! :)
ReplyDeleteIt's great for sure! Hopefully it will be available up in Virginia Beach at some point, otherwise it will just be a treat when I venture down here.
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