Hop City: A Review by Brennan

[I am his minion, posting on his behalf]

Vargo and I went to the opening of the Hop City, which was promised to be a par-tay...and it was mos def not a party of any kind. There were some people milling about, but no muzak and, instead of free beer, glassware and t-shirts flowing like wine, there was only a rep from a brewery that was handing out STICKERS. Like we were five or something. No free beer in sight.

But I was really impressed with the selection. Lots of beers I haven't even heard of. There's enough there to keep beer club tipsy on new tastes for some time coming. The homebrew stuff isn't out yet but will be soon. So, I picked up a 6-pack of Great Divide's Imperial Porter and big bois of Avery's Quadruppel, Left Hand's Imperial IPA, and Stone's "Self-RIghteous" Ale, while Vargo picked up a 6-pack of RJ Rocker's Imperial ESB (where sticker-boy was from), a 6-pack of Duck Rabbit's Barleywine, and a big boi of Fort Collins' Oak Barrel Belgian ale (barrel-licker or something). We swapped out a couple of the 6- packs.

I tried the RJ Rocker this evening, and was pleasantly surprised. It's not an IPA, for sure, but the hops are there, and there's a good bit of grapefruity hop action that is well-balanced with the malts. It begins fruity and ends bitter. Pours a good head, and dark for an ale. Prety good, and masks the 8.5 per cent well.

The Stone Russian Stout we had was very alcoholy, and very chocolatey. After I got past that, it was smooth sailing. Surprised, though, that Stone got out-hopped in the Stout department by Victory.

BTW, the dude from hop city promised us that he
(1) could get ANY kind of torpedo keg we wanted
(2) would definitely have Russian River beers in stock sometime this year.
He said Pliny the Elder is as good as everybody has said. For all those IPA junkies out there, this is the holy grail of hops.

The website, um, sucks.