Brewer: Lagunitas Brewing Company
Beer: Lucky 13.alt
ABV: 8.9%
Location: Petaluma, CA
Style: American Strong Ale
The large majority of my previous reviews have featured some beers from Southern California Brewers, along with my grumblings about not being able to enjoy those beers regularly. While I’m sure many of the few readers this blog sympathized with me over my whining, I should bring up that we (Albertans) are actually pretty lucky. Though not actually from Southern California, Lagunitas Brewing Co. out of Petaluma, California, offer up an unbelievable line of beer that has never disappointed me. What’s more is that, as far as Canada is concerned, they are only available in Alberta. So if anyone is curious as to what I’m talking about when I mention West Coast IPA’s or something, these guys provide unbelievable examples. So anyhow, the beer that I have on the bill today is a seasonal from them, and the time of review was rather fresh… unfortunately I don’t believe it’s available any longer in the province, but I’m sure a couple of you have had this. It is Lucky 13.alt and the style of beer is an American Strong Ale, which is pretty well the widest umbrella possible other than Ale for American beer. So on to the beer then. Wow. This beer actually looks unreal. It’s super orange, and might as well be glowing. Like it is super bright, crystal clear, and had a really crisp tight bubbled head. That head dies out pretty quickly, but I’m not complaining. When I first popped the cap on the bottle, it smelled exactly like a fresh loaf of bread, but as soon as I smell it from the glass, I get tons of piny hops and then some caramel comes in; no malt toastiness or roastiness, but more of like a super ripe apple. I think I’ve mentioned before that sometimes a beer tastes like it has this over ripe, but not rotten, apple kind of taste to it. It’s super sweet smelling but without any tartness. Can’t really smell any alcohol, and It’s 8.9%, so we’ll see I guess. Right away it’s that kind of apple caramel malt I got in the nose, really sweet, but the pine pushes its way in too. Then there’s a pretty abrupt shift, as you can start to taste the alcohol, and I get a good deal of bitterness. The alcohol burn is pretty tame but there’s spiciness there too. Not like Belgian yeast spiciness, more like a black pepper kind of spice, but it works great with the alcohol and the bitterness. Also as it warms up a bit, there’s a really fresh orange taste that comes out, like when you were in elementary and that jerk would squeeze an orange rind into your eyes at lunch and the oils would spray out and blind you for a bit… no? Just me then? Fair enough, but it works really well with the rest of stuff going on in the beer. It’s a full-bodied beer for sure; the mouth feel is substantial, definitely on the higher end of medium, and not a whole lot of carbonation. It’s really robust, and just about every aspect of a beer makes itself known. They don’t really compete with each other, because I can pick them out pretty well at different times during a taste. If I could complain about one thing it’s that the malt on its own is a little too one-dimensional, it’s just really sweet. It doesn’t taste dark or roasted, but just sweet. But I think because of the strong hop profile (and friggin’ delicious one at that) and the alcohol, the beer more than makes up for that. Actually this beer reminds me a lot of their Hop Stoopid. The exception being that the Lucky 13.alt concentrates on the malt a whole lot more. Which reminds me, although this beer is likely no longer available, do yourself a favour and pick up a Hop Stoopid; but be warned, the alcohol isn’t nearly as noticeable out of that beer 8%, from my experience anyway, and a 22oz bottle can lead to an irritable morning.
Rating: Take it from the TGS on this one.
