Grand Teton - Lost Continent Double IPA

Happy New Years!  Have a fun and safe evening everybody!

This is the the second of Grand Teton's seasonal brews, Lost Continent Double IPA. The recipe is clearly crafted with the IPA's origin in mind.  Hops acted as a natural preservative for the Brit's beer which allowed them to take it as far south as India when Britain occupied the territory back in the 17th and 18th centuries.  The British troops obviously acquired a taste for this hoppy brew and produced it long after their occupation of India ended.  The English still make IPA's today (obviously) but they are a lower ABV and much less hop-packed as the American version of the style.  America, being awesome as always, saw something the English did that was good, stole it, and made it better.  Our versions of IPA have so many hops in them you can practically taste the stickiness of the lupulin in your beer.  Most of the time there is hardly a malt backbone to support the massive amount of hops.  But who cares about malt!  This is a friggen Imperial IPA we are talking about here.


As expected, the first whiff of this brew is hops, hops and more hops.  Mostly floral notes come forward as the dry hops make their presence known.  Surprisingly enough I smell a hint of malt in there.  I like it!  This beer is a cloudy orange which shows off its dry hopping and lack of filtration.  I can already tell this beer will dance on my taste buds.  My first sip... delish, but I feel as though something is missing.  I was all excited for a powerful hop, bitter, malt tsunami to hit me but I was left with a glass that disappointed a bit.  Don't get me wrong, the hops are there along with the malt backbone as I had expected.  But for some reason I feel as though there could be more.  I don't think this beer captured the hoppiness that it portrayed in the nose.  I did enjoy the finish.  Nice and clean with a dry, bitter finish that wasn't aided by alcohol.


Overall, I'm at a barely-there 4.0/6.0.  I wanted to put this in the 3's but I don't think I would have done it justice.  The beer is good.  It comes in a four pack and I could easily drink them all without hesitation.  I think I may have set myself up for failure on this one since the aroma of the beer got me all hot and bothered.  Seeing as though this is technically their summer seasonal I could also see age playing a factor in this brew.  I will see if I can find this beer fresh and revisit this review when I do.  My recommendation at this point -> if you find it fresh, go for it!  If you see it on the store shelves in January you may want to hold off until the summer when it gets re-released.


Here are some specifics for Lost Continent:


Original Gravity: 18 Plato (1.072)
Malts: Idaho 2-Row Brewers, German CaraHell & Vienna
International Bittering Units: 90+
Hops: Galena, Columbus, Centennial, Amarillo & Simcoe, Dry hopped with Summit, Columbus, Simcoe & Cascade
Alcohol by Volume: 8.0%