Maybe a little TOO arrogent...

I mentioned in my preview post that I was really looking forward to tasting this beer. I like the sound of "Oaked," and I know Stone Brewery's other less expensive beers to be pretty good. Plus, I mean, just listen to the name! Arrogant Bastard Ale! It just has to be good. To start off, here are the stats:

Arrogant Bastard Ale:
Brewery: Stone brewing company
Style: American strong ale
Alcohol: 7.2%
Serving type: Bottle poured into pint glass
price: $2.99

I think it is worth noting that I do not look at the beer advocate page before drinking the beer, and I don't read reviews before writing my own.

I got to drink this beer this past weekend while I watched another Celtics game. So far every beer I have reviewed here as been drunk while rooting on the C's. Maybe I need more beer drinking friends.

I popped open this bottle and poured it into my pint glass. As you can see from the picture I actually got a decent head on this! This is the first time I have used the hand washed pint glass. I guess that tip paid off, thanks Aaron!

I didn't really detect much aroma from the beer. A little but of hoppyness, but nothing to distinct. The taste was very hoppy, as I expected, but lacked much character. Mainly I just tasted the hoppy bitterness without any of the undertones (such as the pine I tasted in the dogfish head 60 minute IPA). To my disappointment I didn't get ANY oakyness. The hops seemed to overpower any flavors that the malts or the oaking might have given it. I wonder if this was not due to the beer being too cold as Aaron suggested previously, but the taste was pretty consistent all the way through, and it took me about half the game (minus commercials) to drink it. So it should have been warmed by the end I would think.

Overall I was let down given my high hopes for this beer. It reminded me alot of the Stone IPAs, which can be had for $1.99; I really didn't get much of a difference between them. I MAY give this another try some time, just to be sure, but unless someone has had other experiences to convince me otherwise, it probably won't be for a while. My overall rating: Mediocre.

Dogfish head NOT 90 minutes IPA

So there has been this dogfish head IPA in the very back of my refrigerator for about 5 or 6 weeks now, and I have occasionally been thinking about pulling it out and drinking it. Unfortunately, being on a limited budget, I can't afford to drink $2-$3 beers just willy-nilly, so I have been saving this for some time when I can really enjoy it. I have had a number of major tests and practicals over the past few weeks, but this Friday I finally had some free time. To complete the event, I had the celtics vs. rockets game that I wanted to watch.

Thanks to a professor scheduling conflict, I got the afternoon off. I got home about 1:45 (I had a meeting that run long over lunch). I turned on the game and popped a frozen pizza in the microwave oven (ya, I am lazy, but you know what they say about pizza...) Anyhow, I pulled out what I expected to be my favorite beer- a dogfish head 90 minute IPA, only to find it deficient by about 30 minutes. Ya, looks like I decided to save the 60 cents and got the 60 minute IPA NOT the 90 minute IPA. Although, both of them are regularly sold out when I go to my local brew store, so maybe the 60 minute was the only choice.

But enough with the extraneous details, on to the BEER! Dogfish head 60-minute IPA is, obviously, an IPA. I get it for $1.99 from toast, where they let me buy individual bottles without a markup for breaking a sixpack. They call it "build your own 6-pack." The alchohol content is 6%. You can check out all the details at beer advocate.

I poured this beer into a pint glass (really the only beer glass I own, so to me, its the right glass for all beers!), and got basically no head. Typically I got a decent 1/2 to 1 and 1/2 inch head on this beer, but this time I got nothing but a little foam around the edge. Weird.

The first taste started somewhat watery, and had a hard, almost bitter hops taste. Maybe I was still expecting that smoother maltyness of the 90 minute IPA, or maybe this bottle was getting a little old, I dunno. Fortunately, as I progressed through this bottle, the taste really evened out and got smoother.

After eating some cheap pizza and giving my beer some time to mellow out, I started to taste more of the familiar flavors in this beer. This beer has a fairly bold taste to start with a very hoppy finish that I would describe as "piney." I have no idea why, but it tastes like I would expect pine hops to taste.

I was pretty tired from the week, and watching basketball combined with the alcohol was just enough to put me into a dazed coma, and I fell asleep sometime near the end of the 4th quarter of the celtics game. When I woke up I had about an inch of beer left. The final swig was the best.

The 60 minute IPA is my second favorite sub $2 IPA (after Great Divide Titain IPA). This particular experience was not as good as some of my others, but it was still enjoyable, and left me wanting more.