BREWERY: Victory Brewing Company
STYLE: IPA
ABV: 6.1%
PURCHASE: Six-pack of 12-oz. bottles, $15.00
SERVING: 12-oz. bottle, poured into pint glass. Heady as hell from the bottle. Initial head of over three full inches with a standard pour. A faster pour yielded a head that took up almost the entire glass. Even a slower pour resulted in more than two inches. Outstanding retention.
APPEARANCE: Light gold color and foggy. Densely packed white head. Faint bubbling, overshadowed by the suspended particles; reminiscent of another Victory brew, Golden Monkey. Prominent but somewhat uneven lacing.
AROMA: Oh you know, the usual hop-citrus, hybrid aroma of an IPA. This one was a bit floral as well.
TASTE: That hop-citrus dichotomy starts and last right through the finish, taste-wise; straightforward mouthfeel. Fairly easygoing and even a bit light-feeling, particularly for a six-percenter. No crescendos. No emergences. No surprises. Most complex part of the experience lies in the aftertaste: Somewhat lemony, a little sweet (a la Sweet-n-Low), with a slight uptick in bitterness. Sneaky carbonation. Almost shandy-like in its overall palate.
MUSINGS AND METAPHORS: Another good-but-not-great offering from Victory, who in this reviewer's opinion, is really beginning to resemble Sam in that regard. And I'm always--ALWAYS--wary of the "anniversary" theme assigned to certain beers, as I am to any kind of "special edition." In my experience, none of them ever match the best and brightest of their respective breweries.
But it's still a Victory. (See what I did there? Give it a minute.) Victory's beers are kind of like Hitchcock films; most aren't masterpieces--even if that's what their creator is known for--but they're all at least markedly above average. You really can't go wrong. And I'm sorry for the cliché.
GRADE: B
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