Lagunitas Sucks Holiday Ale [Beer Review]
Every year fans of Lagunitas Brewing Company (based in Petaluma, CA) look forward to their winter seasonal, Brown Shugga’. This year, because of the enormous growth they’ve done in the past couple years, they were stretching their capacity to the max. The result? There was no way they could brew Brown Shugga. Unfortunately, the beer takes a long time to develop in fermentation tank before it’s ready to be shipped and that meant they’d miss out on brewing several batches of their flagships. There was no way that Lagunitas could cause even more of a supply shortage of their deliciously hoppy ales. So what did they do? With their typical style, they brewed up Lagunitas Sucks Holiday Ale Brown Shugga’ Substitute, a super hopped IPA that was faster to ferment and didn’t tie up much needed capacity. Well, turns out it was a pretty good beer and the readers of Drink Craft Beer voted it their favorite new brew of 2011. Somehow we haven’t tried it until now, so I’m just going to dive right in!
Lagunitas Sucks pours a beautifully clear, rich golden hue with a puffy white head on top. For real, this thing just looks like a West Coast IPA! It looks hoppy. Maybe this is the reputation proceeding it (it was the top new craft beer in the Drink Craft Beer Top 11 Craft Beers of 2011: Readers’ Choice Edition), but I can’t wait to try this one.
Just as I expected from the appearance (and the aforementioned reputation), it smells super hoppy! It’s not so much oily hops as bright, citrus hops. There’s some sweetness to it, but I can’t tell if that’s the malt acting up or just something I’m getting from those little green lupulin cones of deliciousness.
And the first sip just confirms everything I said above. It’s hoppy! Not just bitter. Not just flavor. It’s hoppy...like, really hoppy. The bitterness is balanced, but asserts itself on the back of your tongue. As soon as it hits your lips, though, your entire mouth is awash in a sea of orange citrus hops. I’ve rarely tasted anything like it. We’ve had a lot of clementines around the house lately and, honestly, that’s what it’s reminding be of: biting into a ripe clementine. It’s juicy, it’s sweet...but not from the malt it doesn’t seem...it’s orangey and it’s a bit tangy even. I would totally believe that they put orange in this. But they didn’t. Just 63.21 IBUs (that’s an astoundingly accurate number...and, for those keeping score at home, no way are they actually able to be this accurate) of pure hop goodness. I can see why this was our readers’ favorite of 2011!
I bought a single 12oz bottle of this craft beer at Craft Beer Cellar in Belmont.
