A great trend I see in craft beer lately is a lot of breweries incorporating a “Bottled On” date 
on their brews. This comes in handy when picking up a hoppy IPA! Fresh is best right? It may be fun to age beer, but I like my IPA’s as fresh as possible! Although it does come in handy when one does want to age a brew if the date is already on the bottle. I would like to see more breweries use the “Bottled On” date stamp. Speaking of a fresh beer…
Port Brewing Co.’s “Hop 15” Imperial / Double IPA was originally brewed in honor of their 15th anniversary. It is brewed with 15 different varieties of hops. The one I picked up was bottled on 3/26/12. It poured a cloudy light copper color with a thin, slow forming white head. The aroma was straight up hops, citrus and pine. It was like pine needles blended with grapefruit rinds, a touch of vanilla and brown sugar. The taste started out sweet, like a really ripe red grapefruit. Then got real bitter and dry, like drinking pure hop pellet juice. All the while there was a malty caramel flavor going on that made a nice vehicle for all the hoppiness. The mouthfeel was full and sticky. The finish was bitter, hot and spicy, with a biscuity aftertaste. The 10% abv was only evident as being 10% in the finish. As the label on this brew suggests, this is a Hop Bomb! Here’s to Good Beers!
