Clown Shoes – Hoppy Feet 1.5
I got this beer in a trade after I sent a few bottles to the city of Chicago. It’s a very peculiar name for a brewery and I had to go online and read the reason for it and luckily, it was on their website and this is what it read… “Clown Shoes? Very long story, but to condense it a group of us submitted the name to the Beer Advocate contest that resulted in The Wrath of Pecant. Our submission didn’t crack the top 5. This burned me up inside. While driving one day the epiphany came: I could make my own Clown Shoes beer.“
What’s with the odd brewery name and now a 1.5 in the beer name?! They might not have liked the first batch, upgraded the software, and the new release worked out a few bugs and worked. All joking aside, this was a good beer.
Turns out Hoppy Feet is available year round, but for their anniversary they decided to dry hop this beer twice and thus they present to you, Clown Shoes 1.5. This is a Double Black India Pale Ale with an aroma of malt, lots of hop, alcohol, and I caught a bit of roasted coffee. The beer was creamy, a really nice feel on the tongue. Almost all beers you find out there have a dominant flavor, but not with this beer. Each sip was very enjoyable as it gave me a balanced combination of hop and malt; I haven’t had this in a beer. You’ll find sweet notes of malt and toffee and will have a hop bitter finish.
This is a very solid beer and I’d say that it’s one of the best Black IPA’s I’ve had. Black anything seemed to be the thing that everyone was doing during 2011 in the beer world here in the States, it’s caught on and with this beer Clown Shoes has really nailed it. I had this beer with some chicken tika masala (a spicy tomato sauce); it was a good combination as the spiciness from the dish went really well with the malt/hop flavor in the beer. This is an IPA I truly enjoyed and will rate Five Beer Caps out of Five. I was surprised by the beer, especially when the label has a clown on it and I couldn’t take it seriously. I’ve done this before where I’ll skip the beer and won’t buy it based on the label, but lesson learned, again, don’t judge by the label or name! Sadly we don’t get any beers from Clown Shoes in the Los Angeles area and can only hope to get some more when and if I trade. Thanks RVD for sending this one my way.
Throw one back for me ~ cheers!
