Many Subtle Layers

I've been hard on very hoppy brews, especially IPA's over the years. Let's just put it this way. If a brewery comes up with some creative way to incorporate the word hop into the name of a certain beer I'm stubborn enough to convince myself to never try said beer. It's always been as easy as that.

With that said, I'm still open to having my horizon's broadened. Take for example a bartender at one of your favorite establishments giving you a small sample of a beer with hops in its name. I'll try pretty much open to anything if someone will put even the smallest effort in recommending a beer to try.

I was given a sample of Helltown Brewing's Idle Hands Zythos last week. Idle Hands is (or has been) Helltown's flagship IPA. I'm guessing that the addition of Zythos hops is fairly new. To be honest, I've never heard of a Zythos hop until last week when I tried this beer. Just as easy as it was to hear about Zythos hops, it was maybe just as simple to be blown away by the scents and flavors it can impart in beer. I was utterly floored. I'm so used to hops in IPA's making me feel like I took a big sniff of ammonia that the fruity aroma I got took me away to an island of paradise somewhere in the Caribbean.



There are some hopped-up ales that make me nauseous with the imparted aromas of intense grapefruit and/or pine. I never thought a hybrid scent imparted by hops could be so satisfying. It turns out that the point of the Zythos existence is to add more layers to a beer's flavor. Here's a screen cap of the Zythos page on the Northern Brewer website.

Wow. Not only grapefruit and pine, but there's also tangerine and lemon? That's mind-blowing. I really enjoyed the beer. Not only did I just have the sample that I was generously given, but I ended up getting a glass of it off of the hand pump afterwards.

The experience of this beer was only helped by the chorizo-dominated I was eating at the time. We all know how a beer higher on the hop scale goes with spicy foods. I'm glad to have finally become familiar with the intricacies of the Zythos hop. Still, the experience only reinforces my view that a hoppy beer still can't only be hops. There should be other great flavors to enjoy in beer and the Zythos hop gets the job done.

Robust

You know when you have one of those moments when it comes to drink or food? Those moments when you feel like you're having a party in your mouth. Ones where life just pauses for a moment and nothing else in the world matters.

I had one of those moments at a beer tasting/pairing last night. I wrote about my visit to my family's restaurant on Route 30 in which there was a wine pairing. Last night was the pairing with Full Pint Brewing Company. If there's anyone that cares about what exactly was served you probably already know due to my posting of the menu I got my hands on after the wine tasting.

I must say the two highlights were the almond crusted chicken paired with the Chinookie IPA and the dessert with the Perc E Bust Porter. The chicken breast was served with a lemon cream sauce and an orange juice reduction. This complimented the grapefruit flavors of the IPA amazingly. You'd like this pairing even if you don't particularly care for IPA's.

The dessert was awesome. It was sweet, but the slight bitterness and strength of the coffee in the porter cut it perfectly. A spoonful of that ice cream and chocolate sauce, with some of the porter already in it, and a quick swig of the porter left me in some sort of a food coma for about 30 seconds. I've always said that if you haven't experienced this you haven't lived!