Thursday, April 13, 2017

Ölbeat 256: Bidassoa Larrun

Brewery: Bidassoa Basque Brewery (in Spanish)
Country: Spain
Style: Imperial IPA
Abv: 8,5 % 
@RateBeer
What about the beer?
Colour is cloudy copper brown with a large natural white head. Aroma has pineapple, mango, orange and caramel. Taste begins with biting bitter fruits and malty caramel. Piny and malty bitterness takes over with caramel malts and a slice of grapefruit. Towards the end bitter pine seems to rise above all. Aftertaste has oaky-piny-fruity bitterness, malty-nutty dryness and alcohol bite.

Powerfully piny and malty Imperial IPA. Pine clearly dominates but there are fruits clearly present. Alcohol bites in the aftertaste. Not exactly my cup of tea in the style but tasty anyway. Memories from last summer's Craft Beer Helsinki were better. Nevertheless, the first beer from Spain in the blog.

Ölbeat

Larrun is a 907 meter high mountain top situated at western Pyrenees on the border of France and Spain. It is a sacred place in Basque mythology, said to be the home of the first serpent, Lehensugea and later a gathering place of witches. I grabbed onto the myth of the serpent but chose the band from the other end of Europe.

Sirenia: Serpent (YouTube)

From the 2015 album The Seventh Life Path, the song was written by Morten Veland.