Bear Republic Hop Rod Rye

This beer gets a lot of hype, and now I know why! I just cracked a 22 oz bomber of it, and I'm very impressed. Here's my review:

Appearance:
Fairly clear, beautiful deep copper with a dense off-white, lingering head. Nice lacing.

Aroma:
Pungent Pacific northwest hops with fruity notes of raisin or plum. Rich, sweet malt comes through as well.

Flavor:
Sweet grapefruit/orange/citrus up front that gives way to a nice, malty background and smooth but assertive bitterness. Dark caramel and raisin linger on the palate along with the hop flavors.

Mouthfeel:
At 8% ABV, it's definitely sweet and full-bodied, but the carbonation bite makes it well rounded.

Drinkability:
Outstanding! The high ABV is well hidden underneath a very rich, flavorful beer. I've seen clone recipes, and now I think I'm going to try one out!

Ooh, that sounds good, I might need to find this one.

I used to buy HRR by the gallon. They have a beer in a box dispenser that you can take in and refill. My Bent Rod Rye session beer is derivative. The brewery also lays down a fine Sunday brunch buffet.

Still one of the best beers around. Truly unique and definitely hard core.

I got a split case of Hop Rod Rye and Racer 5 22ozs over the winter. Both were fantastic brews (and rather reasonably priced around here). BYO has a clone recipe for both in their 150 clone brews issue...Denny Conn's Rye IPA is pretty similar to Hop Rod too.

The Racer 5 wasn't nearly as good a beer as the Hop Rod. I've heard a lot of good things about Racer 5, but it was an average IPA in my book.

I recently had a Rye Pale that was very similar to Dude's Red Eye Rye. Look for a review later tonight when I open another one.

Yuri_Rage said:

The Racer 5 wasn't nearly as good a beer as the Hop Rod. I've heard a lot of good things about Racer 5, but it was an average IPA in my book.

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Interestingly, I said the same type of thing about their Black Bear Stout...heard lots of good stuff but the one bottle sample I had wasn't all that. Course, it was only one bottle.

Bought one the other day, it's sitting in my fridge until...well, maybe tonight. Who knows.

I figure I should point out that I called the brewery and spoke with a brewer about culturing their yeast. They confirmed it was the fermentation strain in the bottle, and that is proprietary, but similar to WLP001. Very clean tasting, highly attenuating, flocculant yeast that they ferment at 63˚F.

Just saw this, I found this IPA to be way sweet, was not my kind of IPA thats for sure. Maybe I got a bad one.

Just tried one the other night after a random bomber buy.
LOVED IT!

I drank mine, and it was fan-****ing-tastic.