Victory Brewing Company's Hop Wallop - A Microbrew Review

A Microbrew Review of Victory Brewing Company's Hop Wallop

Victory Brewing Company, Downingtown, Pennsylvania

Sure, it's St. Patrick's Day today. But for whatever reason, I picked up a bottle of Hop Wallop from Victory Brewing Company at tonight's visit to my local mix six beer purveyor. Notably, this beer is a yearly Fall season brew but this bottle was still hanging around in the cooler and it's got a "enjoy by" date of 12/6/08, so what the heck, right? Hop Wallop is customarily classified as an Imperial India Pale Ale craft beer, brewed and bottled at Victory Brewing's Pennsylvania-based Downingtown brewery.

This imperial IPA poured a cloudy, chill-hazed burnt orange from the 12 ounce brown bottle into my unchilled 16 ounce pint glass. The head of this beer quickly rose to a 3/4 inch, pillowy meringue froth that lasted a good 2-3 minutes before slowly subsiding.

This craft ale's aroma wafted up, out and about from my glass, ringing true to a strong hoppy character. Very bold in bitter grapefruit and cheering from the sideline presence of fresh pine was predominant.

The initial sip of this Victory Brewing Co offering puckered my mouth and gave off a zesty kick of otherworldly hops bitterness. The primary flavor is bitter grapefruit and it lasts through to the swallow. Carbonation level isn't a distraction at all and it ends by going down pretty smoothly although there is a sticky lollipop sour aftertaste that lingers well after. There is just a glimmering hint of a spicey flavor to it in the background, almost clove-like, but not much.

Hop Wallop is strong, very strong in its overbearing hop supremacy. Any malt in this Victory beer? It's close to impossible to detect that's for certain but it's got to be in there somewhere. In looking more closely at the label, I can see that this Pennsylvania craft beer boasts a pretty hefty alcohol by volume rating of 8.5%. I couldn't tell it however as the alcohol content appears very well cloaked in this Pennsylvania based microbrew. Either way, in flavor and in alcohol, it's not a chugging beer, at least not for me. One interesting note is that by about 1/3 left in my glass, this microbrew is especially clear and crystalline almost. It changed appearance about as quick as the weather does here in Western Pennsylvania.

Overall though, my personal opinion is that Victory Brewing Company Hop Wallop is a very good beer although pretty straight-forward and one dimensional in complexity. This ale is probably the king of beers when it comes down to sheer hop bitter terror. It's all about the hops. I personally enjoyed Hop Wallop, but I would guess that there are likely many folks who wouldn't if hoppy beers are not their cup of tea. In fact, even if hoppy beers are your favorite, Hop Wallop still might not be the ticket. It depends. This Imperial IPA falls on the extreme end of bitter hop bombs. I'd give Victory Brewing Company's Hop Wallop an 8.0 out of 10.0 points on my scale. It's a worthy brew for your bucks and especially worth a sit down with for any hop head out there.

P.S. The label on the bottle features a cartoon slappy pappy miner 49er character who goes by the moniker of Horace "Hop" Wallop, at least according to the entertaining little label story about the origin of Victory Hop Wallop. Maybe the story's true, maybe it's not. You decide.

A Microbrew Review of Victory Festbier - Oktoberfest Style Lager by Victory Brewing Company

Here's another craft beer in the Oktoberfest vein picked up just this week at my local microbrew and craft beer bottle shop. This beer is another from a Pennsylvania brewery which I've become quite fond of over the past two years. Welcome to Festbier Lager from Victory Brewing Company, a brewery based in Downingtown, Pennsylvania.

As mentioned in previous posts, I'm really starting to come along in beginning to appreciate the Oktoberfest style beers this fall. I thought I'd try this Festbier being that it's described right on the label as an Oktoberfest style lager.

Upon pouring the properly chilled beer into an unchilled sixteen ounce pint glass, it's easy to describe this beer as a burnt, rusty orange color with a little bit of cloudiness and haze. Festbier poured with almost no head to speak of and very minimal evidence of carbonation. From appearance, it almost looks like it may be spoiled or flat.

Smell is faint. No very much eminating from the surface as far as aroma goes until you really take a good whiff. Scent is somewhat sweet and predominantly of bready malt, maybe almost a toast smell with a strange orange peel presence as well (almost like one of those gel fruit candies shaped like oranges and lemons...strange).

Several sips into the beer, it's got a little more of a carbonated feel to it than its appearance admits. Beer tingles a little on the palate. Not very much excitement in the flavor however. It's got the typical bready, German malt flavor but nothing out of the ordinary or striking. There's not a whole lot in the way of hops bitterness (nor anything tasting like the orange peel as hinted to in the aroma). It wasn't very crisp and left a somewhat unpleasant sour aftertaste on the tongue well afterwards.

As far as an Oktoberfest beer goes, Victory Brewing Company Festbier is pretty standard in the real of Oktoberfests, although it's easy for me to deduct from sampling this beer that I have had better Oktoberfest beers. It's decent enough to drink and is not drain pour quality certainly, but running out and purchasing a 24 bottle case of this at $27.00 for my party this Saturday is something I will not be doing. I probably wouldn't have more than one and I'm guessing my guests would not as well.

My final assessment of Victory Brewing Festbier is ho-hum, which disappoints me a little being that this beer was from one of my growing favorite local Pennsylvania microbreweries. I wanted to like it more, but just can't honestly say it's on my short list to be drinking again anytime real soon. At 5.60% alcohol by volume, this would be a beer you could enjoy a few of on a warm fall evening on the back porch after a football game. But I just don't see myself doing that with Festbier. It's worth a try though and maybe it might be a better experience for you though. Who knows. But in the world of countless Oktoberfest microbrews, with so many beers and so little time, I might steer you towards another beer to satisfy your fall Oktoberfest season beer hankering.

In all fairness though, Victory Brewing Company is a fantastic craft beer brewery with incredible beers. For Victory Festbier though, I'd rate this Oktoberfest beer a 6.00 out of 10.00 points.

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Victory Hop Devil Ale - The Devil Made Me Do It!

Grabbing a nice cold 12 ounce bottle of Victory Brewing Company's Hop Devil Ale out of the vegetable crisper bin of the ole spare fridge tonight, I knew I would be in for a special treat just based on the awesomely, cool label design of this fine IPA microbrew.

The bottle label features a wonderfully conceived likeness of a smiling devil's face cleverly crafted from the image of a perfectly harvestable hop. Smiling, devilish and oh so tempting! I just had to drink it. And I did!

Victory Brewing Company, is an awesome pony in the stable of Pennsylvania microbreweries which I've been blessed enough to have the often opportunity to sample, having them located conveniently in my own Pennsylvania backyard, so to speak.

Pouring this baby into an unchilled 16 ounce pub glass, this microbrew foams to the max and featured a billowy two finger head in all its majesty for a good two to three minutes before settling down into something a little more manageable.

A golden rusty copper color burned bright in my glass, clear and crisp and full of bubbling supremacy. I just had to take a sip, and quick!

This is refreshing folks. If you've seen any of my other reviews on A Microbrew Review Blog, you probably know I have a soft spot in my heart for the India Pale Ales. I love them and they're one of my favorite microbrews without a doubt.

Victory Hop Devil Ale takes the IPA to a whole new level however. This is a far more than solid craft beer here. It features the typically hoppy bitterness and a citrus grapefruit tinge as well. But adding to that, I sense a certain heavier "spiciness" of some sort that I've just never placed in a previously sampled India Pale Ale. What that spiciness is, I just can't put my finger on it, at least not just yet. Maybe I'll have to try another bottle or two to narrow it down. If you can place it, please do let me know. Maybe it's only my imagination but I get the impression that it's a unique style of IPA, almost like a "winter warmer" with its spiciness.

All of this goes against anything I've ever sampled in an India Pale Ale making it a little bit alien and strange, but at the same time, making it extremely unique and a standout amongst the other IPA's you'll find out there in the craft beer world.

I've sample several of the Victory Brewing Company's offerings over the past couple of years and all of them I'd have to rank as outstanding or at the very least far beyond average in my microbrew rating scale. This beer is not a lightweight however. Coming in at 6.7% alcohol by volume, this is another microbrew that you'd want to keep track of your intake with. It's wonderfully good and very easy to drink without filling you up. But more than two or three in a sitting, and you'll have the "devil inside" you and at that point, he sure isn't going to be happy.

I recommend going out and trying Victory Brewing Company's Hop Devil Ale today if you have any access to it in your region. It's definitely an out of the ordinary experience in the microbrew review arena!

You can check out more reviews of new microbrews and fun microbrew and craft beer related info at Microbrew Review or My Squidoo Lens. Check out Summer Microbrew too!