A good heart (is hard to find)

Firstly apologies for the Fergal Sharkey reference in the title, any pretence at being "cool" is now well and truly gone. 

World cup and this weather have meant plenty of beers being drunk but not much commitment to blogging about them... trying to make up for it now (but its still sunny outside, and the football is on, so this might be a tad half-hearted). The last post covered a couple of beers kindly donated to me via Michigan, well one of them was even on the list and is beer number 218 from "1001 Beers...".

 218. Bell's Two Hearted Ale
Style: IPA. ABV: 7% From: A generous friend state-side.
Description: Poured light amber and hazy. Off-white head. Aroma is big on perfume, pine, and floral hops. Taste follows that; lots of perfumey floral hops, piny, but there's not much malt to balance it out. Bitter. Mouth-feel is sticky and resinous. 
Thoughts: The description above reads like something I'd love, but actually it was all hops and not much else. Some malt or something might else might have helped to balance out the flavour a bit. It was grand but not something I'd rush to again. Though if your a real hop head this would probaly be right up your street - I'd guess people who love Jackhammer would also love this.Score: 6

The last beer from this little American selection was North Peak's Diabolical IPA (Style: IPA. ABV: 6.66%). This poured orange with lots of white head. Not much going on aroma wise, floral hops and some citrus but all quite subtle. Flavour is less subtle; again floral hops, astringent and bitter. Mid bodied with a nice resinous mouth-feel. Decent this as a big floral IPA, not as perfumey as the Two Hearted it carried a bit of a better balance - plenty of C  Hops (Columbus comes to mind) I'd guess. Good but not great. Score: 6.5

I haven't reviewed Brewdog's Punk IPA here before (as I first drunk it ages ago) and I won't do a full one now either, but just to say I'm really enjoying the cans of it currently available in various spots across NI (try these places on Belfast Beer Blog for starters) - I'm not sure if it's psychological or not but they seem to taste fresher and more tropical to me... If you see them try them and let me know what you think!

Right back to the footy, sun and beers.

Cheers