Brew Review - Dogfish Head 90 Minute Imperial IPA

I believe I can officially say now that an IPA is one of my favorite styles of beer. Back in late October, I posted a review of another IPA and I simply struggled to finish it. But now, the last few IPA's I've tried I really started getting into. Tonight I finally found an IPA I can truly love. I'm talking about none other than the 90 Minute Imperial IPA from Dogfish Head Craft Brewery of Milton, Delaware. Thanks to all of the recommendations from fellow beer lovers to just keep at the IPAs, I've come to expect a powerful taste and now look forward to them. This beer is the one that will bring me back to quality IPAs.

The 90 minute IPA comes out of the bottle looking golden but quickly turns reddish when poured into a snifter glass. It had a small whitish head and a moderate carbonation. The smell up front was what intrigued me. I can swear I've smelled this exact aroma before but for the life of me I can't remember which beer this reminds me of. I could smell a floral, sweet yet spicy and piny aroma all in one. This aroma seems to last a long time. Other beers I've whiffed seem to overload your senses after the 3rd sniff and you tend not to be able to smell much after that. Not this beer. I could keep smelling the wonderful aroma on each and every sniff. It must be that DFH constantly fed hops into this beer during the brewing process. It is even dry hopped as well.

Being an Imperial IPA, this beer has a lot of malts, a lot of hops and a nice high 9% ABV. The IBU rating is a hefty 90 IBU. And for you calorie counters, each 12oz bottle has 294 calories. When I drink beer, I don't care about calories, I care about the experience and the taste. This beer has plenty of that. This beer fills the mouth with a raisiney, citrusy and caramel malt taste. The liquid seemed to make my tongue tingle after swallowing it. Despite the high alcohol, you really don't get an alcohol bite with this beer. This beer goes down smooth. You know there is a lot of hops in this beer yet it is not the harshly bitter kind of ale.

If you gulp a mouthful of this and then burp through your nose, you will be nearly overwhelmed with the hop sensation. Some people overlook this test of a beer. I like to burp when sampling a beer. That tends to really bring out the full aroma of the beer.

I've seen Dogfish Head ales at the store for sometime now but up until now, I didn't feel that I was ready to appreciate a good IPA. This beer comes in a 4-pack and cost me $9.89 after a 10% discount. Otherwise, 4 bottles of the 90 Minute IPA would set you back $10.99. Think the hop and malt shortage are affecting prices? I think so. Still, buying it at the store instead of in a pub saves you a bunch of money.

Just one of these beers was plenty for me. I think I'd spoil it if I tried to have 2 or 3 of them. Just enough kick but not overly so. Just right for a weeknight. I really enjoyed this imperial IPA. I'm definitely going to buy more of this in the future.

BeerAdvocate loves this "A". And Ratebeer gave it a solid 99th percentile with a 4.07/5 rating. I too am going to rate this up there and give it a 3.8 out of 5 rating. Certainly the best IPA I've had to date. I'm now a big Dogfish Head fan at least. I look forward to trying their 60-minute and 120-minute varieties.