This has been a long awaited beer for me.  Flying Dog is one of my favorite breweries, yet NJ always seems to be at the bottom of the list.  I get it, I understand why, New Jersey is not considered a craft beer state.  I’m working on it, converting people one beer at a time. But I digress, it’s finally in NJ and I have one to drink tonight, which makes me a happy man!  Raging Bitch is Flying Dog’s Belgian Style IPA, brewed as their 20th anniversary beer.

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This is Captain Lawrence’s second appearance on Simply Beer, actually the second appearance of this beer.  The big difference, this Imperial IPA was from a Cask at Andy’s Corner bar for Beer Brawl™ 19.  We were all super impressed with the cask version, now I’m going to try the Captain’s Reserve Imperial IPA from a bottle.

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Another gift from the mail man, this was sent to me by a friend in So. Cal (thanks Lance!).  Lagunitas, in my book, consistently puts out good beer, which is why I was excited to try this limited release of Little Sumpin’ Extra! ale.  This is a 8.7%, 72 IBU imperial IPA, guessing from the the Lagunitas beer I’ve had in the past I was anticipating a big bold hoppy IPA.

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I’m always on the look out for the next big hop craze, it was IPA’s then Imperial IPA’s then hopped up whatever and now we are at Wet Hop beers.  While Sierra Nevada has been doing it for awhile, there seems to be lots of people jumping on that band wagon.  Sierra Nevada’s Wet Hop Ale is made with cascade and centennial hops and I can’t wait to try them fresh in this beer.  I found the 13th Release of Sierra Nevada’s Harvest Wet Ale last week in Rochester NY.  Since I wasn’t sure when it would be in my local store in NJ I bought a bottle. 

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If you have been around craft beer for any amount of time and like IPA’s, I’m sure you have heard of Russian River’s Pliny the Elder.  This Russian Rivers Double IPA has a diehard following of hard core hop heads.  I would consider myself a hardcore hop head, but living in the North East, we don’t get any Russian River beers including Pliny the Elder.  Since I wanted to try this beer and see what the hype was, I traded beer with a guy in Southern California.

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This is the second beer from Laughing Dog  Simply Beer has reviewed.  Previously we had looked at the 127 IBU monster, Alpha Dog, now we take a look at the black dog in the pack.  Dogzilla is Laughing Dog’s Black IPA.  This style of beer has been attempted by several breweries, including Southern Tier.  It is basically an IPA with Dark malt, or is it a Porter with lots of aroma Hops?  I don’t know, but I think this one is more of the latter.

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