Name: Le Freak

Brewery: Green Flash

Overall Rating: B

Style: Specialty Beer – Belgian IPA

Serving Style: 22oz Bomber

ABV: 9.2%

IBU: 101

Price: $Gift

Aroma: Strong esters of pears and a subtle hint of peaches.  Citrus aromatics from the heavy hopping are present as well.

Appearance: Cloudy orange/yellow.  Nice 2 finger white head.

Flavor: Strong estery bananas and pears dominate the flavors as the liquid hit the tongue, the phenols then sneak in with hints of cloves and tobacco finished by a strong hop pow after taste.

Mouthfeel: Well carbonated and chewey.  A nice warm liquor feel followed by astringent Belgian dryness.

Enjoyability: San Diego is the undisputed champion of IPA and Imperial IPAs.  At least the American varieties.   With so many San Diego brewers serving up bold IPAs, it’s no wonder some are trying to carve out a new style niche by blending or using different yeast strains.  Stone has their delicious Cali-Belgique in this same category.  While the Belgian IPA is still not listed as an official BJCP stlye, I could see them adding it one day soon.  However, I find myself longing for either a really good Belgian Triple OR a strong Imperial Pale Ale after drinking this style.  I’m not sure the two style pair extremely well together.  You lose some of the subtlies of both.  For instance, the complex esters and phenols I love in a good Belgian never fully got to develop before the big bad hop monster slapped them right off my tongue.  And the hops tend to be married with some odd banana esters that detract from the pure hops I love so dearly.  The king of this emerging style has to be the Houblon Chouffe Dobbelen IPA Tripel.  The Greenflash was similar but the Belgian characteristics were second to the hop aromotics.  I’d be curious to hear some other takes on this style as you can tell I’m a bit torn and confused.

Another take: The Drunken Polack dug it | Barley Vine did too

Tags: beer review, belgian, Belgian IPA, Belgian Triple, bjcp, Green Flash, Green Flash Le Freak, IPA, Le Freak, San Diego

This entry was posted on Sunday, February 15th, 2009 at 11:25 am and is filed under Beer Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.