Great Divide - Titan IPA

Time for beer!  Today I'll be drinking Great Divide's Titan IPA - according to their website, this is a big, assertive, aggressively hopped IPA "brewed for hop disciples", a category that I comfortably fit into.  This is a 7.1%ABV ale that has won some medals in the past few years.  It pairs with Halibut, Thai curry, or cow's milk cheeses, none of which I will be eating anytime soon.

Great Divide manages to pack a ton of information onto their labels - they include a brew description, medals won, food pairings, and a full copy of Hemingway's Farewell to Arms.  After a gentle pour, this beer yields very little head.  Lacing is nice and sticky.  The color is an amber/orange that is ever so slightly hazy.  Quick disclaimer:  my nose is extremely stuffy today, at the moment only my left nostril is permitting air through.  So my smell-quality isn't 100%.  That being said, this beer is able to break through the barrier and present pine and lime....and a lot of it.  The taste starts of very bitter - it's actually opening up my nasal a bit!  It's a pure, non-flavored bitterness at first, but soon after the flavors of pine-sol and cleaning supplies come forward.  There is a small touch of gritty caramel malts that sneak through, but not enough to help pull this cleaning solution out of the gutter.  The body is crisp and highly carbonated, and the finish is slick and oily.

Overall Rating:  (2.0 out of 6.0)  It's been a while since I had this beer, but I remember enjoying it a lot more last time than I did tonight.  I think Great Divide may have tried to hard to make this an american hop-slammer, and ended up with a bottle of pine-sol.  It turned out too harsh and unpleasant, with an aftertaste that followed suit.  It's possible (probable) my stuffy nose and cold symptoms are affecting the flavor.....I'll have to revisit this one again in a month or two for a fair and balanced, Fox News style review.