New Glarus Black Top

Brewed By: New Glarus Brewing Company in New Glarus, Wisconsin

Purchased: 12oz bottle bought at Woodman's in Kenosha, WI; 2013

Style/ABV: Black IPA, 6.9% 

Reported IBUs: ?

In Wisconsin the cows go "mooo." I'm pretty sure this is the last of the 12oz bottles, which is kind of sad for me. BUT, there are some fun fruit beers around the corner, so yay. About New Glarus:

New Glarus is the rare, gorgeous "Midwest" brewery, founded in 1993 by Deborah Carey, the first woman to found and operate a brewery in the United States. She raised the capital for the start-up as a gift to her husband, Dan Carey, who is New Glarus' brewmaster and co-owner. Dan Carey has a long history working in the brewing industry, including an apprenticeship at a brewery near Munich, Germany and a job as the Production Supervisor for Anheuser-Busch. The brewery began as an abandoned warehouse using old brewpub equipment. In 1997, Dan Carey purchased coper kettles from a brewery in Germany. In May 2006, New Glarus opened their new (current) facility on a hilltop in the village of New Glarus. The facility looks like a Bavarian village, and is gorgeous. The expansion has allowed the brewery to continue to increase their production, and expand their operations. For more information, check out their brewery page or Wikipedia. 

The Black Top is a seriously tasty brew. I'm not going to lie, this beer is totally bangable. This Black IPA features notes of molasses and chocolate malt undertones, with a rush of clean citrus and pine notes. Or so says New Glarus. I get a lot more from this beer, so stick around.

New Glarus Black Top

In low light the beer starts by pouring into a dark red/brown body, but quickly turns into a mostly opaque, black body. This one kicks up a finger of sandy, gray/khaki head. The head departs with some lacing, and a nice cauldron effect forms atop the beer. If you shine a bright light through this beer, you can see right through it. It's ruby red with some popping carbonation. 

The aroma on here is super aggressive, as per the style. I'm getting blasted with a ton of super resinous, super woody, super dank citrus: namely grapefruit and orange, with some guava and apricot. I had this beer on tap in the New Glarus tasting room, and it's so aromatic and bright on tap...same story in the bottle. I'm also picking up some huge resinous pine and resinous pine sap on the aroma, along with some hints of chocolate, bitter dark chocolate, roast, and black molasses.

Wow...just wow on the taste. Straight away you get blasted with a mix of resinous pine and citrus, and then you get hit with some dusty dark chocolate, roast, coffee, and molasses. Once those flavors quickly subside, you get more super resinous pine, resinous citrus and guava, and intense hops. There's a rich peppery note in this, and I would suggest the perfect food pairing for this beer would be peppered steak. I'm wondering if they use some Nelson Sauvin hops in here, because I'm picking up some resinous passion fruit in the mix. This is just...the tits.

This beer is perfect. The palate depth and complexity are both off the charts for the style. The mouthfeel strikes a perfect balance: it's medium-bodied with good carbonation, impressive bitterness, tons of hop flavor, and some roast and dark malt character to boot. What I really like about this beer is that the balance is shifted towards the hops/fruity character. This beer never feels like a Stout or an IPA being bombarded with roast/black malts. That's a good thing, because many Black IPAs fall into that trap. And did I mention this beer is ridiculously drinkable for the fairly high ABV? This is probably my favorite Black IPA. You get blasted with resinous pine, citrus, tropical fruits, and hop explosion up front; that rolls into bitter pine, roast, bitter chocolate, subtle malt complexity; the back end trails off with lingering bitterness and complex dark malts, and finishes with resinous hops. The finish is dry and attenuated, with lingering sticky fruits. Delicious.

Rating: Divine Brew (5.0/5.0 Untappd)

I'm feeling a Strong Divine Brew on this. This is just one of the best Black IPAs in the world. There, I said it. This beer has taken home medals, it's drinkable, it's complex, it's big and bold....it's just really, really fucking good. If you are in Wisconsin and you like beer, you have an obligation to buy some of this beer. This is some of New Glarus' best stuff, and yes, it's not a fruit beer. Food pairings for this beer: steak. Preferably something salty or peppery. Peppered steak or Salisbury steak sound just about right. New Glarus also suggests pairing this beer with Mexican food, and I agree! Some steak tacos or a steak burrito? Shiiiiit. Seriously, I'm going to drive across the border in a few weeks to get more of this. I cannot recommend this beer enough.

Random Thought: Seriously, this beer is the tits. I envy Wisconsin, because as far as I know, Illinois has nothing like this readily available.