Stephen King once wrote that it is okay to drink a six-pack a day as long as you start after 5pm---if you start before, that makes you an alcoholic. I don't drink anywhere near that volume of beer, but I generally agree with the principle: no beer before for 5 for me. On Wednesday I decided to break that rule to celebrate getting an internship. I went to lunch at John's Tavern (Winfield's beer Mecca) and ordered Bell's latest release, The Oracle, on tap.
Bell's is well-acquainted with hoppy India Pale Ales (IPA) like this one. I imagine their Two Hearted IPA is the second best-selling IPA in the Midwest/Great Lakes region after Goose Island's, and even at $20 a six-pack Hopslam double IPA sells out in less than a week every winter. This one gets much less press than either of those two, and seems to be more limited.
I had this in a semi-dim restaurant, so I don't know how much I should trust my vision here. It looks much paler than I expect from an IPA or double IPA, maybe a few shades darker than gold. Crystal clear too, no haze or sediment. It was topped by about one finger's worth of white foam that probably would have been higher if it hadn't had so much room to spread out (they served it to me in this wide glass). The foam retained well and left a lot of lacing on the side.
People don't eat hops, so describing the way a hoppy beer tastes or smells can be amusing. The most common descriptions seem to fall into four categories, depending on the hop variety: grapefruit/citrus; tropical (mango and pineapple); floral (flowers, grass); and pine-like (pine cones and tree sap/resin). The Oracle falls firmly in the grapefruit end of the citrus spectrum here. There is just a hint of pine-like spiciness on the nose, not much else. Like many IPA's, this one does not really smell all that bitter.
If you go to Bell's website, they say they made "only the slightest concession to malt & balance" when brewing this beer. Not an exaggeration. Drinkers used to Hopslam (which has almost the same 10% alcoholic strength but less hops) will be taken aback at how much more intense this is. The Oracle might not smell bitter, but it definitely tastes bitter. There is an odd type of orange (I can't think of the name) with a very bitter peel that this sort of tastes like, coupled with grapefruit rind and a bit of pine. Intensely bitter, the malt contributes almost no sweetness at all. I like a bitter hop bomb every now and then, and 16 ounces of this pretty much met my weekly quota. It actually might be a little too dry, but that's not much of a dig against it---Bell's clearly succeeded in letting the hops shine here.
I like this a lot. I hadn't had a hoppy beer in almost a month, and I thought the last one was pretty unpleasant (Founders Devil Dancer....that's for another post). My only regret was trying to have it with a spicy chicken salad....the one-two blitzkrieg of hops and buffalo sauce made the poor glass of Goose Island Green Line I had afterwards taste like water.
I would also like to say the staff and service at John's was excellent, as it usually is.
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