I sampled this month's TOTM in Miami, where I was speaking at the Cheers Beverage Conference along with friend and fellow scribe, Lew Bryson. On Day Two of the Conference, Maggie and I joined Lew in his room to kill a little time before the start of the industry cocktail party and I brought along this bottle down along with a few others, just to keep us from getting too thirsty as we waited.
The Slipknot is part of Full Sail's limited edition "Brewmaster Reserve" series, but Lew and I agreed this is one beer they might like to make more widely available. (Maggie passed on the beer and happily sipped Michael Collins Irish Whiskey, the blended version, which turned out to be a close runner up for the TOTM.) Right from the first sniff, the beer captured my attention with rich, perfumey aromatics dominated by floral and citrus notes - not exactly what you expect from a double IPA, but highly appealing nonetheless.
In the body, Slipknot continued to enchant, with a sweetish candied lemon start and, as Lew perfectly describes on his blog, "a swelling full current of hops." It was as if someone was slowly cranking up the voltage on a hop-o-metre in my mouth, until the beer hit a lovely crescendo of orange, grapefruit, nut and lingering bitterness on the finish. All in all, an artfully crafted beer and one I'd love to serve to some of the "hop bomb" brewers out there.
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