One of the things that I like to do before I head off to my Canton Taco Mac for a few beers is to check the draft list online for anything I haven’t had before. That’s just what I did before heading there in this, the first week of December, 2012, and to my delight the first new arrival I spied was Brooklyn Blast, though that shouldn’t surprise since Brooklyn has privileged place in the alphabet chain.

Anyway, when I got there, I was even happier to see the beer listed in the “Just In” section, and so ordered it up as the first beer of the night. I wasn’t the only one to order one, the beer seemed to be the hit of the night (everybody loves to have a blast after all).

Part of the popularity could be because Brooklyn is such a great brewery, and I can’t remember ever having a bad beer from them. Then too, Brooklyn Blast is a draft only offering, meaning you won’t see it in bottles, at least not yet. Being a big beer (Brooklyn calls this a “Big IPA” by style) at 9% alcohol by volume per the Brooklyn website (Taco mac had it listed as 8%), my Brooklyn Blast arrived in an 11 ounce short pour. Still, at $5 for that serving, I had no complaints.

Here’s what Brooklyn says about Blast:

We brew our beer in New York, about halfway between the hop fields of the Pacific Northwest and the hop fields of Kent, England. So we use earthy English hops to build the foundation and bright citrusy American hops to bring the noise in the rambunctious IPA we call BLAST!

Malts: Scottish Floor-malted Maris Otter, German Pilsner Malt
Hops: Ahtanum, Simcoe, Willamette, Centennial, Palisade, East Kent Golding, Pilgrim, Challenger, and Fuggle

And here’s what I think:

Brooklyn Blast pours to a bright orange amber color with a moderate creamy head formation and a resiny, gently citric hop aroma. Taking a sip I get the prerequisite chewy caramel malt up front, followed by pine tar resin and a firm bitterness in the finish. Citrus and honey come through as well, the former more so as the beer progresses. Hop aroma seems to drop off a bit in the finish. Warming alcohol is very present, and there is a subtle (for a DIPA anyway) lingering bitterness.

A good double/imperial IPA, I think, definitely a hoppy brew but not an over the top one. With the veritable parade of hop varieties listed I was expecting more of a hop soup than I got, and more than the 53 IBUs Brooklyn lists on its website. Still, this is a tasty enough beer that I can definitely recommend. It went extremely well with an order of Taco Mac’s house made chips and salsa, especially the latter’s tangy tomato and zesty jalapeno components.  



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