I’m watching March Madness, and an incredible UVA – Purdue basketball game and had to grab another beer. This one was given to me by my friend Joe when we met up and did the Bourbon Trail a couple of weeks ago. He lives in Atlanta and brought me a few beers from there. I had to double check, because I thought I’d had a beer named Hoplanta before, but the one I had before was from Red Brick Brewing.
Location: Poured into a Teku pint glass from the can at my home in Bloomington, IL.
Numbers: 6.8% ABV, 70 IBUs, ~210 Calories
Appearance & Aroma: It’s light amber in color and somewhat hazy. It had a big rocky white head that fell to a thin layer over the top after a few minutes. It has a little bit of a piney-earthy hop aroma.
Taste & Feel: The body is medium and the mouthfeel is smooth and lightly oily from the hops. There’s a bit of earthy-spicy hop bitterness up front, followed by more bitterness in the middle that has some citrus. The hop bitterness and flavors continue to evolve in the finish with more spicy earthiness. The aftertaste is a sticky spicy earthy bitterness that lasts a few minutes.
Food Pairing: With all the bitterness in this beer, you’ll need a solid food to stand up to it like a steak or burger – something that could work with the spicy earthy bitterness.
Overall Impression: I was a bit confused with the hop bitterness aim for this beer, as it was a unique hoppiness that was quite spicy and earthy. The bitterness almost made it taste like an earthy minty, sometimes metallic bitterness. I didn’t really like the mix of these hop flavors and overly strong bitterness without much hop flavor.
My Rating: 
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