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As you can tell by the big grin on my face on the right (which never went away the entire time I was in Oregon), I was having a great time making the rounds at the Oregon Brewers Festival. As you can tell by the other picture on the right, I still had to make it through a lot more beers at the festival. There were almost 80 different beers there under two enormous tents. I had never heard of Hop Valley Brewing, but simply by the name, I figured it was from Oregon (and sure enough, it was in Springfield, OR). I found out that this beer was named because it was the 100th beer brewed at their brewery. And, even after battering my tastebuds on the top two hoppiest beers at the fest (Lucky Labrador’s Summit IPA and Terminal Gravity’s Single Hop Double IPA), I thought I’d try this 100 IBU beer. I found it hilarious that despite this being one of the top hoppiest beers at the festival and it having 100 IBUs (the human palate can’t taste bitterness past this level), they listed on their sheet that the hop level was “Medium High.”
The beer had a darker yellow color and a thin white head on it. There was a big citrusy hop aroma to it with some hints of pine and grassiness as well. I enjoyed the smell quite a bit.
When I took a drink, the malt flavors zoomed by, but were slightly noticeable before the nice citrusy hop flavor took over. In the finish, the hop flavor explodes, with more piney flavors coming through. The hop flavors lasts for a bit, but tasted good. For a double IPA with 100 IBUs, it was hoppy, but it had a good malt backbone to it.
As I’ve mentioned before, these big hoppy beers don’t really lend themselves to enjoying them with food, so I won’t even attempt a pairing. Overall, I felt that this was the best moster hopped beer I had so far. The combination of hops made for a good, complex hop flavor, and the solid malt backbone made it fairly drinkable… not that you could enjoy too many at nearly 9% ABV.
My Rating: 
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