Thursday, November 17, 2011

On Mikkeller Single Hop Sorachi Ace

Next up in my Mikkeller Single Hop Series tastings is Sorachi Ace. This is my second exposure to Sorachi Ace; the first being with Brooklyn Brewing's Sorachi Ace. Common to saisons and IPAs, this relatively new hop from Japan is probably known most for its intense lemony aromas. With alpha acids over 10% it can easily be over bitter, but I think Mikkeller has done a good job to keep it in check. 

 The beer pours a cloudy, burnt orange color beneath a shallow carpet of white foam. Lemon and honey infiltrate the nose with a bit of warm biscuits. Not unlike a crumpet with lemon curd. 

Alcohol gives way to flavors of lemon and a bit of grass. Strangely, malt flavors are more apparent in the aroma than the flavor. Hints of grapefruit linger in the finish. This beer is medium bodied and exhibits lively carbonation with generally good balance that tilts to the malt side for an IPA. 

Lingering sweetness borders on cloying but doesn’t quite cross that line. This is my second exposure to Sorachi Ace hops, and the flavor is growing on me. I see this beer pairing well with whitefish or sushi.

Single hop series reviews:

1 comment:

  1. That sounds wonderful. I need to go find something brewed with Sorachi Ace hops. Would you recommend Brooklyn Brewing's Sorachi Ace over this?

    Mostly unrelated: I homegrown hops are in a chest freezer, among other things. Other things include store-bought bread that keep in there until a whole loaf is taken out and used for a week or two to make sandwiches that I bring to work. This particular loaf of bread that I have taken out most recently seems to have been in the freezer for a long time—the top 1/4 to 1/3 of the bread is freezer-burned and it doesn't seem as "fresh" as some of the others.

    I was eating my lunch at work one afternoon, and after I plowed through the freezer-burned portion of the sandwich to get rid of it first, I noticed there was some extra flavor in my sandwich. Something that I really enjoyed but that doesn't necessarily go with a peanut butter sandwich that well... hops. After being in the freezer surrounded by bags of hops for who knows how long, the bread had taken up some flavor of said hops. I'm halfway through the loaf and still not sure how to feel about this.

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