JailHouse Brewing Company
Hampton, GA
Hop Riot Double IPA
8.0% ABV
Hampton, GA’s JailHouse Brewing Co. has put out increasingly good beers. For being just 3 years old and stationed in an incredibly small town (4 square miles, about 7,000 people), the small brewery is pumping out year round beers that rival their bigger Georgia counterparts (SweetWater and Terrapin).
Unfortunately, Hop Riot is their first misstep for me.
Coming in at 8% and 100+ IBUs, Hop Riot is marketed as an imperial pale ale or a double IPA. For an IPA, it pours a really dark brownish amber color with red tones around the edges. There’s a big, tight off-white head with a lot of lacing that lingers.
On the nose is are toffee and caramel notes, with a bit of a hop to it. It’s very muted and dull smell as opposed to most imperial IPAs, which are generally hop bombs.
The taste is really underwhelming. There’s a strong, slightly bitter malt flavor on the front. Mid palate, there’s a strong bite of rich hops, but that gives way real quickly to the toffee and caramel flavors. Unfortunately, those give way to what I’d describe as cardboard. There’s a dry, stale flavor that takes over the palate and makes it kind of unenjoyable to drink.
Hop Riot is JailHouse’s January release, so it may be better in its prime. But sadly, it does not hold up very well after a few months. It’s a shame for such a great brewery to put out something so disappointing.
——-
Furthering my belief that I ended up with a bad bottle instead of an example of what the beer was supposed to be, the folks at JailHouse tweeted me a message after I posted how disappointing I thought the beer was.
@drinkblogrepeat would love for it to have hit a home run for you. We’ve had some great feedback on that beer.
— Glenn Golden (@jailhousebrewer) March 9, 2012
1) Another example of great customer service. I would expect nothing less from the JailHouse team. They’re all-around quality people.
2) It’s a shame I probably won’t be able to grab another one before it’s off shelves. I’d like for JailHouse to keep their flawless record with me. That “loss” should come with an asterisk, though – 4-1*
