Backlash Salute

Appearance: Salute pours a rich golden color with a pure white head which upon first pour sticks around for a few, but then recedes into a thin layer of bubbles, with a slightly thicker population around the rim. Aroma: Now we get down to brass tacks. The aroma here is just plain ol' lovely. I just swirled mine for a little boosting charge of aromatics and -- sweet baby Jesus, yum. I get a lot of sweetness in the nose, all very tropical and soft. Think papaya, mango, maybe even a little bit of pineapple or passion fruit. That's the backdrop of the nose- soft sweetness. Swirling through that however is this almost intoxicating (ha, get it, cause it's booze?) interplay of pine and what I can really only describe as dankness. Just a twinge, but it's there. It's so very complex and, to me, exactly what I love in a big IPA. Taste: It's really hard to groove on the nose of this beer for very long without wanting to take a sip. The aromas just kind of beg you to partake, so I shall. This beer nears 100 theoretical IBUs. As such, you'd expect it to kick the crap out of your pallet and send you home to suck on ice cubes. Not here though. The beer starts with that same sort of tropical sweetness you get in the nose. It's very soft and easy on the tongue -- really enjoyable. Somewhere around mid-pallet the grapefruit/pine/dank taste creeps in, just in time to keep the beer from being cloying or juice-like. The finish is probably the only point in this beer where the bitterness really becomes evident, lingering with a grapefruit pith kind of feel, drying you out ever so slightly, begging you to take another sip. And so I shall. Mouth feel: Make no mistake, this beer is bone, bone, bone-bone-bone dry. Any perceived sweetness is a result of the hops used, and has no real malt implication. This beer finished more dry than many of our Belgians which was perfect because if it hadn't, the sweetness from the hops might be overwhelming. As it stands the beer has just enough body (not much) to allow all the hops to shine through but not seem watery. The carbonation is middle of the road, especially because I've been constantly swirling this thing to release more aromatics. It's like a sickness, I can't stop. Drinkability: DANGEROUS. A lot of other double/imperial IPAs are bitter enough to kind of make you sip them and pace yourself. At 8.5% and with such a smooth bitterness, this beer is dangerously drinkable. You've been warned.