Beer Here Dark Hops

Brewed By: Beer Here in De Proef, Lochristi, Belgium (De Proefbrouwerij)
Purchased: 1 Pint, .9oz (16.9oz) bought at Binny's in IL; 2012 

Style/ABV: Black IPA, 8.5%

Reported IBUs: 80
"Hops were harmed in the production of this beer." 

I wish I spoke Danish or German, because it would make my life a hell of a lot easier. Today, I'm looking at a beer brewed by "the guy," at Beer Here. Beer Here is (or was?) a Danish brewery, based out of Køge, Denmark. The brewery was founded and is run by Christian Andersen Skovdal, the previous brewer at the Ølfabrikken (The Beer Factory) microbrewery. According to THIS ARTICLE, Christian left Ølfabrikken to start Beer Here in 2008. Beer Here contract brews their beer, while Christian masterminds the brews. Hence why I said the brewery may have been based out of Køge.

Tonight's beer, the Dark Hops, is contract brewed at De Proefbrouwerij. You can get the breakdown on the Dark Hops HERE. The Dark Hops is described as a "stout as hoppy as an IPA." This beer is brewed with Maris Otter malt, smoked malt, British specialty malts, and sugar cane. The beer is hopped with Zeus and Czech Saaz hops. Clocking in at 8.5%, this is a big beer. There's a PDF on the beer, which can be found HERE. The PDF outlines slightly different ingredients, stating that this is brewed with Maris Otter malts, malted rye, roasted barley, brown malt; and then hopped with American Columbus hops. Either way, this beer still clocks in at 8.5%, and packs 80 IBUs. This beer is unpasteurized, unfiltered, and bottle-conditioned. You can age this for 3-5 years.

I sometimes laugh at the dumb hop puns that breweries use for their beer names, but I think "Dark Hops" is pretty fucking clever. Especially considering that the Black IPA is still somewhat elusive, and was even more so when Dark Hops first arrived on the market. So props to Beer Here for that one. Let's glass this up and see what we got.

Beer Here Dark Hops

This one pours a swampy brown-purple color, with a super hazy/swampy body. I kicked up 5-fingers of creamy, thick, foamy head. The head is tan, with a bready color. In bright light, the body of this beer is juicy/swampy/murky as fuck. It's like scooping out a cup of muddy swamp water. It's like a purple-brown Bloody Mary. You can see carbonation in the form of tiny, tiny bubbles. The head is quite creamy, and sustaining nicely. It has a cream soda/root beer color. There's lacing, duh. I'm a big fan of these murky, unfiltered beers. It's like an adventure in a glass...crickey.

The aroma on this is dank hemp, resinous hops, roast, hints of coffee, a bready backbone, and TONS of sugar. I'm getting a lot of candi sugar, molasses, and some sugary rye. There's a floral thing going on with the hops as well, with hints of mint, pine, and citrus.

It seems both fitting, and ironic, to serve this in an Arrogant Bastard glass. This is a very palatable and balanced Black IPA, with a creamy and smooth mouthfeel. I'm getting a lot of pine, citrus, and grapefruit on the back end of this. You get some of the resinous and dank hops up front, with hints of hemp and tobacco. The middle rolls into roast, and there's a coffee-roast thing throughout. As the bitterness grows, I pick up some more hop resin, bitter dark chocolate, and the beer really coats the palate well. There's an underlying alcohol complexity going on here, with hints of raisins and figs, and a boozy abyss. At 8.5%, this is a big beer.

This is lighter than I was expecting at 8.5%...less hoppy and resinous than I was expecting (especially for 80 IBUs!)...fairly smooth and drinkable; supported by lots of carbonation..and yet, there is a growing and underlying complexity that drives this beer. There's a lot going on here. First off, palate depth is great. This is medium-full to full-bodied, but retains drinkability (so be careful...8.5% and all). But the complexity is outstanding. Up front is roast, chocolate, coffee...and then you get kissed by hemp, tobacco, resinous/piney hops, a hint of mint; the hops hang out in the middle, with bitter citrus, grapefruit, coffee; the back end is lingering bitter, and then opens back up with roast, chocolate, coffee. The finish is woody and dry as hell. As all of the above is going on, there is an underlying boozy complexity driving this beer, with dashes of figs and raisins and spice. There's also a bit of grain and bread as the backbone.

Rating: Above-Average

Is that what you want?

I gotta go with a Lite Above-Average on this. I was leaning towards Average, but this really won me over with all the stuff going on. I wish the hops were a little more prominent and resinous, but the tradeoff is that this beer features a really nice hops vs. malt balance, has tons of complexity, and makes the alcohol work in its favor. Oh, and this shit is super drinkable. This is a dangerous beer at 8.5%. Food pairings? You know, this is basically an IPA with the added dimensions of roast, chocolate, and coffee. You could pair this with anything, really. This beer is bitter enough to stand up to strong foods and big spices, so I could see this working with spicy chicken and rice, Mexican food, pizza, really hot and spicy wings, ribs, etc. The cost of this was reasonable at around 7 or 8 bucks a bottle.

Random Thought: I actually bought this beer twice. I picked up a bottle of this, and during the trip between my upstairs and downstairs, I dropped the bottle...only to watch it shatter into 20 pieces and spill delicious beer everywhere. The loss of beer is a tragedy, but the real suck-ass is cleaning up spilled beer. I can't imagine spilling thousands of gallons of beer at a brewery (which happens frequently enough). Because that's how you get ants.