Tasting Notes: Moor: JJJ IPA

Moor: JJJ IPA (England: IIPA: 9.5% ABV)

Visual: Deep cherry red. Hazy with a massive cinnamon/toffee coloured head. Bubbled massively, with a creamy looking top for the very sturdy head.

Nose:  Glacier cherries, syrup and strawberries. Cinnamon, slightly oaky, Very subtle malt and some light pineapple. Apricot.

Body: Hops, the hops are heavy and cloying, but not off-putting. It causes a certain claustrophobic feel on your tongue. Strawberry and bitter backed. There is a creaminess mixed in with the middle hops. Subtle sweetness that increases with time. Touch of vanilla.  Slight wood, big malt back and light grapefruit.

Finish:  Dry growing bitter. Malt drinks and wheat. Grapefruit, dry and sticky hops.

Conclusion: This is a big IPA (in body and size of your bottle), but not at all how I had expected it to be from its description.  It really is a heavy and thick IIPA, almost muggy and sticky in its hoppiness. Not a bad thing by the way, much to my surprise, does result in the bitterness being laid on thick.

The look of it gives rise to comparisons to the Dogfish head 90 and 120 minute IPAs, but that is about all they have in common. This is much closer styled to traditional IPAs than those sweeter beers, though it does take American hop influences slightly in its body.

There is sweetness and fruit in there, but it plays more in the nose that anywhere else, this leads to a very heavy IPA, potent, but doesn’t feel it.

It’s a good beer, not great but good.  The higher ABV doesn’t seem to add much over the less potent beers, and while I am interested by doing an IIPA that is much closer to IPA style that its brethren, I do wonder why I would not just drink an IPA if I wanted that.

Still, it is a good example of how to do a high ABV beer that still has the traditional IPA style done well. A good beer, heavy and thick hopped, I’m just not quite sold on its purpose for being.

Background:  Moor Beers is another big reputation brewery, and one where the only beer I had tried of theirs (the peat porter) had not impressed me.  This had a heck of a rep as an IIPA, and as a big fan of the style I thought it was worth a revisit.