I didn’t make it for the first tapping at 5:00 on Friday, but I have now had a glass (or two) of Hop Mess Monster v.2, which is undoubtedly the hoppiest beer ever brewed in Canada. The proud papa is none other than Greg Nash of the Hart and Thistle brewpub. Greg says he added 18.5 pounds of hops per barrel, which is the proverbial “bucketload” (please feel free to insert unpublishable synonyms). The calculated (theoretical) IBUs are 1066 (!!), but we all know that limits to both extraction and the human palate mean that much over 100 IBUs is undetectable. Although that amount of hops will affect the impression of the beer even if the bitterness is not complete.

Nash used a complex mixture of Chinook, Citra, Columbus, Nugget, Summit, and Amarillo for the beer. Nash claims the beer has been “mash-hopped, first-wort-hopped, bitter-hopped, flavour-hopped, aroma-hopped, hop-bursted and dry-hopped again and again”. Sounds pretty thorough. It is a 9.2% Imperial IPA (although does a beer this intense fit in that category?).

Let me start my description by saying very clearly – this is a whopping hoppy beer! All my comments below need to be read in that context. This is a hop aggressive, demanding beer.

That said, it was WAY more drinkable than I feared. I am a big fan of hops but wouldn’t consider myself a hop fanatic. I lean towards balance and appreciate bitterness if it is in sync with the other qualities of the beer. In the aroma Messy (as the bartender affectionately calls it) offers a gigantic hop character of citrus, grapefruit, grassiness and leaf with a bit of resin. The malt is a wimpy little pipsqueak in comparison.

However, in the sipping the malt finds a way to exert itself. Yes, the hops takes the lead role – complex, hearty and puckering – but there is enough biscuit and toffee malt to put a bridle on the hop flavour. What I found was the multi-layered hops were tempered by a touch of malt sweetness. The beer finished dry – how could it be otherwise? – but not insubstantial. It reminded me of a slightly more assertive Pliny the Elder. The alcohol is sneaky in a Belgian kind of way – you can’t really discern its strength until the end of your second (or third) glass. So be careful.

Nash describes it as a “liquid hop delivery vehicle”, but to be honest I think he sells himself short. While it is an intensely hoppy beer, he understates how balanced it is. And that, for me, makes all the difference. If this beer was just about insane amounts of hops, I would have walked away shaking my head. Anyone can drop a harvest of hops into a brew kettle. But to make the resulting beer drinkable takes real skill. Nash has achieved the latter – despite his protestations to the contrary.

The beer is projected to run empty in less than 2 weeks, which means I will need to find a way to make my way back very soon.