12 Beers Of Xmas Day 9 - Brutal India Pale Ale

For beer no.9 I head back to the US for the final time.  Tonight I get to enjoy a large bottle of beer from the good ol' US of A because over there they like you to enjoy more of their beer.  None of these crappy little 330ml bottles.  To be fair they do plenty of those too but from my last visit over there I did notice that these large 650 ml bottles were very popular and abundant.  I even enjoyed a 650ml bottle of the 11.2% ABV Double Old Thumper - a real man's beer.  

The beer I have chosen tonight then comes from Rogue Ales.  The story behind Rogue goes back to 1988.  The brewery was in the basement of the Rogue Public House in Ashland, Oregon.  Their second brewpub opened a year later in Newport, Oregon and they now operate brewpubs in California and Washington too.  Their philosophy is to give back to the local community in which they operate too as well as brewing 'revolutionary' beer.  Their beer has certainly won many awards and is often available over here now.   

Brutal India Pale Ale (6.0% ABV) pours a delightful golden colour and has a wonderful fruity hoppy aroma.  Neither the bottle nor the website tells me the strength of this beer although Untappd tells me it is 6.0% ABV.  The website does tell me it is 15 degrees plato and 13 degrees Lovibond and 81 AA and 46 IBU though.  All fascinating to someone I'm sure.  I will make a note of finding out what all of these mean one day (actually I know most of them but I won't bore you with it).  Anyway back to the beer.  It looks great and smells great.  My wife said it tastes like many of the IPAs I ply her with from time to time, no better and no worse.  As I only offer her the best then that must be a compliment.  Very strong tropical fruit flavours with this one particularly mango and there is a dry bitterness in the finish that I think is just fab.  The hops and malt in this beer come from their own farms no less.  In fact Rogue Farms seem to produce everything a brewer could wish for including rye, pumpkins, jalapenos and hazelnuts.  I'm sure these all end up in one or two of their specialty beers.  All in all a cracking beer from a brewery that seems to do everything the right way.  Top marks from me.    

Cheers.