The Triangle

Issue date: 4/11/08 Section: Arts & Entertainment

Somewhere along the timeline of craft brewing, adding "Imperial" to the beginning of your beer name meant it was more or less twice as strong, twice as alcoholic, twice as bitter, twice as sweet, etc. I don't know how or why this trend started, but I'm not complaining. I'm all for big beers with a high flavor content matched by the alcohol content.
Tröegs continues this tradition with their Nugget Nectar Imperial Amber Ale.
The beer starts off as their regular Hopback Amber Ale, but then more hops are added and the flavors get squeezed out for all their worth. This is apparent from the label which shows a hand squeezing a whole hop flower, letting its tasty and fragrant oils drip out. This beer makes great use of dry hopping. The beer has an astringent hop aroma with a strong bitter, almost spicy taste that is complemented with a light mouth coat that keeps everything in balance. Balance is important in these so-called "Imperial" beers because a beer's flavor can easily be overtaken by a higher than normal ABV.
Luckily, Nugget Nectar is perfectly balanced. It pours a deep, beautiful amber with copper highlights. It leaves an eighth-inch of soapy head that doesn't go down. The lacing creeps down the glass as the beer creeps down your mouth. However, you can't just enjoy the look of the beer because the aromas are very apparent. The smell is of pure hops, through and through. As you drink the beer, wonderful smells effortlessly crawl up your nose. It smells like a grassy garden. First, you are hit with the earthy aromas, like grass or pine, but they turn right into a smell worthy of your first wife's floral bouquet.
The big smell is followed up by a big taste. Its bitterness might remind you of a double IPA; however, the flavor is all amber ale, just turned up to 11. The first flavor is a slight pine flavor. After that, the malts kick it up into high gear and give a slight caramel-like sweetness as it travels to the back of your mouth and just leaves your mouth dry with a big bitterness. The finish is surprisingly short given the big alcohol (7.5 percent ABV) and big flavor.
While the beer feels thick, it has a nice coating effect, and the carbonation is pretty strong. It can take a second for the complex flavors of the beer to come out. It isn't really a chugging beer; however, the flavor always leaves you wanting more, so don't be surprised if you finish it quickly and are left wanting more.
The food pairing isn't too fancy. It would go best with any kind of meat or a strong cheese that could stand up to its big flavor. This would be something aged, something sharp, or something blue. A soft or mild cheese would just get lost in this beer's complexity.
What can I say? I want to drink this beer all the time; I really don't understand why this is a seasonal release.

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