Brewed By: Half Acre Beer Company in Chicago, Illinois
Purchased: 22oz bomber bought at West Lakeview Liquors in Chicago, IL; 2014
Style/ABV: Imperial IPA, 8.0%
Reported IBUs: ?
As luck would have it, I'm a lucky dude. I happened to be wandering Chicago's great liquor store landscape, and I stumbled upon one of the distributed bottles of Half Acre's Galactic Double Daisy Cutter. I figure this one is best fresh, so I'm not even going to camp on it for a week. Let's get this shit show on the road. About Half Acre:
Reported IBUs: ?
As luck would have it, I'm a lucky dude. I happened to be wandering Chicago's great liquor store landscape, and I stumbled upon one of the distributed bottles of Half Acre's Galactic Double Daisy Cutter. I figure this one is best fresh, so I'm not even going to camp on it for a week. Let's get this shit show on the road. About Half Acre:
The Half Acre Beer Company was founded in October 2006, which is young for craft beer in general, but great for the local Chicago scene. The founders of Half Acre started out by working with the Sand Creek Brewery in Black River Falls in Wisconsin. They eventually developed their Half Acre Lager, and began distributing and selling it in Chicago during the August of 2007. The beer was successful enough that Half Acre was able to buy out a space in the Bucktown area of Chicago. With continuing sales, Half Acre was eventually able to purchase equipment from Ska Brewing Co. and moved to their current location on Lincoln Avenue on the north side of Chicago. Half Acre has been brewing at their Chicago location since 2009, and seems to be really expanding in both amount of distribution and popularity. Check out the full story HERE, and check out their website for a low-down on all their beers and info.
The Galactic Double Daisy Cutter is the amped up version of the Double Daisy Cutter (which is the amped up version of the Daisy Cutter) brewed with Galaxy hops. The Galaxy hop is a modern and punchy hop, known for big passionfruit and citrus notes. This beer is brewed once a year and released in limited amounts...making it one of Chicago's #epic #beerwhalez. Serious sighs all around. Given how overrated the Double Daisy Cutter is...let's see how the Galactic version can stack up.
This is a good looking beer coming out of a good looking bottle being poured into a good looking glass. The beer is a 9 or 10. Unreachable girl you won't ever bang let alone flirt with. Brilliantly orange, lightly unfiltered, and with a finger of choppy, off-white head. In bright light the beer is more of a golden-yellow, with tiny streams of spotty carbonation. The head is whiter in bright light, and is leaving iceberg sheets of lacing. This is a looker from the onset, but who cares.
This is fresh, and the aroma explodes out of the bottle and the glass. I'm getting hit with pungent citrus and passionfruit from more than two feet away. Sticking your nose directly into the beer yields big, juicy citrus and passionfruit, watery melon, watermelon, mango, and some graininess.
The good news is that this is a huge improvement over the Double Daisy Cutter. This is a relatively straight-forward Imperial IPA, blasting you with juicy and refreshing citrus, passionfruit, light citrus resin, light bitter citrus rind, and some nice hints of guava, melon, mango, and tropical fruit. This has a growing bitterness that is welcomed, and the malt backbone is firm but not assertive. There's no grassy airiness or watery letdowns here.
This is a medium-light bodied beer with plenty of carbonation and juicy hops to keep things clean and refreshing. Palate depth is great, with plenty of malt backbone and good duration. Complexity is average, and this one is pretty much a straight shot: big citrus, mango, passionfruit, and sweet hops up front; that rolls into resinous hops, slightly bitter citrus rind, growing bitterness; the back end is bitter, dry, and features lingering citrus. You don't taste or feel the 8.0%, and if this beer was readily available I would buy it regularly. Too bad...
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| Half Acre Galactic Double Daisy Cutter |
This is a good looking beer coming out of a good looking bottle being poured into a good looking glass. The beer is a 9 or 10. Unreachable girl you won't ever bang let alone flirt with. Brilliantly orange, lightly unfiltered, and with a finger of choppy, off-white head. In bright light the beer is more of a golden-yellow, with tiny streams of spotty carbonation. The head is whiter in bright light, and is leaving iceberg sheets of lacing. This is a looker from the onset, but who cares.
This is fresh, and the aroma explodes out of the bottle and the glass. I'm getting hit with pungent citrus and passionfruit from more than two feet away. Sticking your nose directly into the beer yields big, juicy citrus and passionfruit, watery melon, watermelon, mango, and some graininess.
The good news is that this is a huge improvement over the Double Daisy Cutter. This is a relatively straight-forward Imperial IPA, blasting you with juicy and refreshing citrus, passionfruit, light citrus resin, light bitter citrus rind, and some nice hints of guava, melon, mango, and tropical fruit. This has a growing bitterness that is welcomed, and the malt backbone is firm but not assertive. There's no grassy airiness or watery letdowns here.
This is a medium-light bodied beer with plenty of carbonation and juicy hops to keep things clean and refreshing. Palate depth is great, with plenty of malt backbone and good duration. Complexity is average, and this one is pretty much a straight shot: big citrus, mango, passionfruit, and sweet hops up front; that rolls into resinous hops, slightly bitter citrus rind, growing bitterness; the back end is bitter, dry, and features lingering citrus. You don't taste or feel the 8.0%, and if this beer was readily available I would buy it regularly. Too bad...
Rating: Above-Average (4.0/5.0 Untappd)
I'm feeling a Strong Above-Average here. This is a really refined, classy take on the Galaxy hop. This beer is also a huge improvement (imo) over the regular Double Daisy Cutter. It's not a life changing Imperial IPA, but it is a really well-executed beer. It's refreshing, it's affordable, and you wish Half Acre cranked this one out on a regular basis. Put this in a can and sell it by the 6-pack. I guess Daisy Cutter is the next best thing. Food pairings here include American bar food, spicy wings, Mexican food, nachos, and all things ballpark and baseball. This beer reminds me of warm weather, and that reminds me of baseball, so yeah. Do that. I would love to get this one by the growler full.
Random Thought: Is this beer worth the hour-long line? Fuck no. In fact, Half Acre's Beer Hates Astronauts was probably better than this, and the Heyoka IPA is not far behind (if not on even footing) and is available year round. I like this beer, I don't get the hype.
I'm feeling a Strong Above-Average here. This is a really refined, classy take on the Galaxy hop. This beer is also a huge improvement (imo) over the regular Double Daisy Cutter. It's not a life changing Imperial IPA, but it is a really well-executed beer. It's refreshing, it's affordable, and you wish Half Acre cranked this one out on a regular basis. Put this in a can and sell it by the 6-pack. I guess Daisy Cutter is the next best thing. Food pairings here include American bar food, spicy wings, Mexican food, nachos, and all things ballpark and baseball. This beer reminds me of warm weather, and that reminds me of baseball, so yeah. Do that. I would love to get this one by the growler full.
Random Thought: Is this beer worth the hour-long line? Fuck no. In fact, Half Acre's Beer Hates Astronauts was probably better than this, and the Heyoka IPA is not far behind (if not on even footing) and is available year round. I like this beer, I don't get the hype.
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