REVIEW #87: Final Frontier (To Øl)

Pours somewhere between amber and strawberry red with a dirty-white head. The nose is sublime, full of caustic American hop resin, pine and solvent (furniture polish!); heady and medicinal. Lots of succulent fruit initially, quite surprising given the intensity of the aroma; we're talking mango, grapefruit, citrus. This is reinforced by a very generous level of bitterness, probably 100 IBU or there or thereabouts. The beer features an excoriating solvent and clotted cream finish which works with the hop bitterness to completely desiccate the mouth. To me this is as good as an IPA can get. If I rated beers this would be a 10 out of 10 job. 

To Øl are two Danish brewers, Tobias Jensen and Tore Gynther, former students of Mikel Bjorn Bjorgso of Mikkeller fame. They produced their first commercial beer in 2010 at De Proefbrouwerij, Belgium. One of their early beers was in fact a collaboration between with Mikkeller; the outcome an Imperial IPA called 'Overall'. Final Frontier, a double IPA (DIPA), is intended as a bigger & better 'sequel' to their First Frontier IPA. They also make a saison, a porter and a pale ale in addition to many other seasonal brews. If you want an idea of what Final Frontier is all about perhaps the closest thing I've had to it is BrewDog's Hardcore IPA, readily available in Tesco's. I got this beer from www.beersofeurope.co.uk (have a free plug on me!).

• MALTS: ?
• HOPS: SIMCOE; CENTENNIAL; COLUMBUS
• IBU: VERY HIGH
• ABV: 9%
• QUICK DANISH LESSON: GAER = YEAST; VAND = WATER; HAVRE = OAT; HUMLE = HOPS; MALT = MALT :P

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------