Grand Teton Brewing - Pursuit of Hoppiness

Grand Teton Brewing has this awesome brew that I tried for the first time about 1 year ago - I haven't seen it on the shelves for a long time, but found this 750ml bottle last week and jumped on it immediately.  There is a cool little historical expose on this brew on Grand Teton's website that gives some background and statistics.  This is part of their Cellar Reserve beers, so it is bottle-conditioned and can be aged, although Grand Teton recommends it be drank while fresh to maintain it's hop bitterness. 

The bottle shows the brew was bottled on 11/11/10.  The beer pours a nice creamy dark red/orange with half an inch of light head.  The aroma is awesome - caramel malts are present, along with pine and some earthy citrus hop fumes.  Also some floral notes present in there. 

The beer tastes a little different than I remember.  Very bitter hop profile that bring the aromas to the taste buds, pine and some grapefruit seem prevalent.  There is also some sweet maltiness that comes through in the middle, followed quickly by some alcohol solvency.  It finishes fairly clean, but the alcohol is too big of a player.  Each drink I take, the alcohol shows up and takes over more than I would prefer.  The body is thick and kind of chewy, warming, and well carbonated.

Overall Rating (3.1 out of 6.0)  This beer wasn't nearly as good as I remember it being last year.  The big hop profile is great, but the sweet malts and heavy alcohol presence make this a mediocre beer for me.