X48 - Sierra Nevada 2010 Celebration Fresh Hop Ale (USA)

This gorgeous beer has a deep, creamy, lovely nose with notes of fudge, sweet oranges, lemons and those wonderful summer flowers. Deep, sweet and yummy!

The taste is as yummy as the nose promises with notes of fresh, flowery hop, oranges, almonds and some earthy notes. Finishes fresh and dry. A lovely beer to just sit and sip, but it lacks a certain complexity to aspire to greatness.

92p   (tasted from bottle - 2011/02)

X47 - Mikkeller Simcoe Single Hop IPA (Denmark)

The nose is tight and concentrated with notes of blood oranges, earth, summer flowers and some saw dust. It is very tight and you have to coax the glas hard to get the scents out of it, but when you do the aromas is nice and fresh.
The taste is fresh, intense and big with a massive bitterness and creamy yellow fruit. After the initial taste the bitterness overwhelmes the fruit somewhat. A little unbalanced in fact. More impressive than hedonistic good.

84p   (tasted from cask - 2011/02)