Uinta Dubhe Imperial Black IPA

Uinta’s Dubhe Imperial Black IPA

Not sure whats up with Uinta. Not only is the brewery’s name unsuited for human tongues, but this beer is called “Dubhe” and i think you need your tongue cut into three forks in order to pronounce that correctly. The label is pretty, though, a starswept Utah twilight skyline, complete with buttes and mesas and other easy-to-pronounce things.

This sucker has a big wide label, like their Hop Nosh i tried, and just like the Hop Nosh, there’s very little information on it. Lots of slogans and back-pats, but only one useful nugget: this Imperial Black IPA has a striking 9.2% alcohol content, which must just drive the Mormons out there to fits. Oh, and it’s made with hemp too. Wow, these people are just asking for a fight in Utah!

And, now the mystery of the non-carbonated Hop Nosh is solved. I didn’t just get a defective bottle of the Nosh, apprently Uinta Brewing just doesn’t believe in carbonation. What do they do with it? I know my chems and my bios, and so i know that when yeast make alcohol, they fart out carbon dioxide. So where did it go? At 9.2% alk, there was certainly a lot of yeast farting going on, in and around this beer. What happened to it?

On the good side, whereas the uncarbonated Hop Nosh was nasty, this is a pretty delicious beer so i don’t mind that it’s flatter than an Olympic gymnast. Don’t know what makes it “Imperial”, other than if an emperor says he’s wearing clothes, then his beer is fizzy too. The color here is almost stout, but brown where stout would be blacker, and still as opaque. Smell is very nice, hoppy and mealy and would probably work fine for killing wasp nests.

And it tastes like stout too, only a tad hoppier than most stouts. Very heavy carmelized mouthful, an insistent urge to chew once or twice before swallowing, it’s got that pumpernickel taste. I know what’s going on here. Uinta made a stout, then figgered out that America is nutzy for IPA’s. So they popped a few extra hop cones in there, and Voila! Now it’s an IPA! Uhh, errrrm… we meant “black IPA”. No, we meant Imperial Black IPA, yeah, that’s what we made. Yupsiree. We meant to do that.

So this is not an IPA. The label is a lie, which the Mormons out there will also take umbrage at. This is a stout with 1.3 times as much hops as in a stout. But i can’t really compare this to other IPA’s then, now can i? For stouts, the standard is Guinness. Against that field of competitors, Dubhe I.B.IPA fares decently. Sweeter, but it’s made for Americans so we’ll let that pass. More hops, and it turns out that’s not a bad thing for a stout.

As it happens, i like stouts. If i didn’t, then i’d be royally pissed off that they call this an IPA. Imperially pissed off, in fact. But as it stands, rating this as a stout and not an IPA (where it would score poorly), this odd contraption gets a 7.7. More carbonation might have lifted it a couple tenths, but it’s OK as it is. Just, don’t look at the label and think you’re getting an IPA.

Moylan’s Dry Irish (Style) Stout

Moylans-DragoonsStout-7.5
Moylan’s Dry Irish-Style Stout

Big bottle, and got a good laugh out of me with the warning on the side: “Live Ale!”. And a busy bottle, all kinds of logos and symbols and little pictures of medals Moylan’s has won. Apparently this guy’s ggggg-pappy was personable enough to lead troops in wartime, the RevWar to be precise, and since he was Irish and Guiness has made Ireland famous for stout, making this was a no-brainer! Live Ale!

Hearty indeed, like a stout has to be to keep from being bullied, and a crisp immediate aftertaste, as it should be, and oatey and sourey and lands like a brick in your stomach, all these things are what a nice real live stout does. Moylan’s does these things. It’s not as sour and tarry as Guiness, but then again this is America. We need things dumbed down for us.

One thing in Moylan’s favor, a key in their quest for making an American version of Irish Stout, is that they imported the grains used in the beer from the UK, which might mean Northern Ireland, or which might mean a muddy pitch downhill from Birmingham. What we can tell, is that it’s 5% alk, not too scary, and it sure is impenetrable by normal light.

All in all, a good drink if you like stout, which i do but many (many) people do not. So caveat emptor: this is stout. You either eat it or you don’t. For a rating… well, it’s not Guiness. I like stouts so i’ll put it at 7.5 for being lip-smackery but it doesn’t rise to the standard Guiness sets. No shame, almost nobody reaches that level.