Struise Mikkeller

Last night I had my bottle of Struise Mikkeller.

It's a rather tasty brew. As you can see, it had an awesome full head. It was more than head, it was practically meringue. After the head got set and I continued to pour down the middle, the liquid beer punched a hole that looked almost like a donut. The beer itself was brown, with maybe a little sickly yellow hue to it. There was also some flocculation, but not too much. There was some brown chunks that settled to the bottom of the glass, and also some that managed to get stuck in the thick foam.

Before I opened it, I read part of the label, but not the full thing. Here it is...

RateBeer Special Release:
Behold the second of RateBeer.com’s Worldwide Masters Series! This request edition ale is the crafted alchemy of a party of some of Europe’s finest brewers, Mikkel Bjergsø and Kristian Keller of Mikkeller (Copenhagen, Denmark) and Urbain Coutteau, Carlo Grootaert, Phil Driessens, and Peter Braem of De Struise Brouwers (Woesten-Vleteren, Belgium).
Both breweries have attracted considerable international attention for their artful interpretations of traditional ale styles enlived by a rich sense of invention. And both are also very highly esteemed by the RateBeer.com international community of beer tasters. We hope you enjoy this unique little treasure.
Struise-Mikkeller-- the product of master brewing and friendship. Celebrate this sense of camaraderie by sharing this bottle with your good friends!
- Joe Tucker, RateBeer.com

Struise-Mikkeller is as we said in the past "Best of two worlds". We delivered an IPA with 130 IBU, but a bitterness hidden the Struise way, counter balanced by maltyness, alcohol and rest sugars. People who do not like Ipa's will actually be amazed, the general hop bomb addict will not understand, so yes this is a controverse brew... enjoy anyway!

So it's 130 friggin IBU!!! Supposedly we can't tell anything above 100, but technicalities aside, I expected to have my taste buds ripped off my tongue. I was wrong...

When I opened the bottle, I thought I got a bottle of "Sunny D". The smell of citrus jumped from the bottle. I've never smelled a beer that had as much citrus aroma. Would that be cascade hops? Which one has that much orange aroma? Is it Sapphire hops?

The beer was thin and drying. The flocculation gave it a feel of an orange juice that had a very small amount of pulp in it.

The taste was strong orange, with a hint of lime and other citrus. For 130 IBU (International Bitterness Units) it wasn't bitter at all. When I see a high IBU I expect pine flavor. There was no pine in there at all. It was all citrus flavor. This Double IPA had more lemony flavor than the Leinenkugel Summer Shandy's that I had earlier at BW. There was a slight hint of pepper that snuck in near the end.

It finished very clean, like an orange juice.

The only other Imperial IPA that I've had that was anywhere near this citrus-y was Goose Island Imperial IPA.

This would be awesome with BW Mango Habanero sauce. It would be probably the worst beer in the world to have after brushing your teeth, therefore Kriddy didn't even try a sip.

In other news, we lost at softball last night. :( I slid and scraped up my leg a bit, but not too horribly. It's been just under 2 years since I've slid, the last time didn't go so well. I've still got the scars from it. I put neosporin on it today and have it wrapped so hopefully it'll heal better and faster this time. This is what that last time looked like.



Day of

next day

creative bandaiding

So hopefully this time doesn't get as bad as last time. I'm wearing tall socks now when I play, so that cut down on the abrasion to my leg initially, and I'm treating it better, so it should be ok.

In other other news, my tap a draft is out for delivery, yay!!!

The party has been moved to Monday, bring a beer and a lawn chair.