AleSmith Brewing Company - Yule Smith Summer Holiday Ale

What's up gang? Back to back reviews? Holy shit! I know right! Pretty rare I manage to get reviews up in consecutive days, hell, sometimes consecutive weeks. But like I said previously, I've got some "new" beers in my fridge and I want to get to them sooner than later. So I figure I get to drink and you get to read about me drinking. It's win win really!

So today I'm drinking the Summer Yule Smith from Ale Smith. That's a lot of Smith's! This is an Imperial / Double IPA that comes in at 8.5% abv. Not too crazy like the RuinTen from last night, but this should pack a punch none the less. So let's get this thing poured cause it's hot and I'm in need of something good and cold to drink.

Yule Smith pours out a crystal clear golden color with some slight copper hues along the bottom curves of the glass. There's about a finger to just under a finger and a half of a foamy white head that is sticking around for quite a while. Lots of tiny white bubbles here too. There is a ton of carbonation streaming up from the bottom of the glass. This reminds me a lot of a sparkling wine actually. Really nice looking beer but doesn't scream DIPA. Let's get the nose.

This is one dank, resinous smelling DIPA. Lots of hops on the nose. Like, an overwhelming hop presence. Lots of dank onion and garlic. I can see how some would say this smells like weed. I mean, it's THAT resinous here. Beneath all that dankness there's a decent amount of grapefruit peel and zest. It's quite sweet but is really just beat down by that dank hop character. There's also a little bit of pine hiding out as well, like it's afraid of getting destroyed by the dankness. Really strong smelling beer. Let's see how dank this one tastes.

Massive amounts of hop bitterness right up front. Like, palate destruction 101. A good amount of carbonation sort of pushes that bitterness through the middle of the palate. There's a nice sweetness along the sides of the palate. I'll be honest, it's a welcome relief to the brutality from these hops. Grapefruit and maybe even some tangerine. Very refreshing. Back of the palate if you didn't know the hops were there, well guess what, they're here too. Good amount of pine needle chilling out back here as well. Incredibly dry finish and I'm left with a lingering bitterness. It's just refusing to go away and honestly, in a DIPA, that's how it fucking should be!

So overall, this is a fantastic beer from AleSmith. While it's an all out assault on the palate, it's nicely balanced. Not a juicy IPA by any means or is it overly citrusy. This is just a big, dank, in your face, DIPA. I'm not even drinking this very fresh. I think it was bottled towards end of May so over a month old. I know, fresh enough, but some would say it's past it's prime and to drain pour it (looking at Pliny fanboys and girls now). But seriously, no bullshit. This is another great beer from AleSmith. Pick this up. You won't be sorry.

Rating: A