Dry-Hopped Gandhi Bot DIPA

Double Dry-Hopped Gandhi Bot DIPA (cask)
1 draught, $6.50, 8.8% ABV

Purchased at Max Burger, West Hartford

Seriously?

gbSeriously. This beer is so good it’s making me crazy and forcing me write this review like a bad food blogger writes about whatever free morsel they weaseled. Like, Oh. My. GOD! Emoji. This beer is Ah! May! ZING! Emoji.

I received my double dry-hopped Gandhi Bot double IPA for free, but this is not a compensated post and I would double dry-hopped pinky swear emoji-emoticon promise that I would TOTALLY pay for this beer! Except I didn’t. Because I’m a flogger. But I’ll keep saying I WOULD pay for stuff. Even though I don’t. Even charity event tickets. I’m a terrible, narcissistic person. And I don’t even like beer. But it was free! Even though I’d pay for it… but wait, I don’t like beer. I’m going to go workout.

Okay, enough of that. And for the record, I did pay for my beer – both of them. Because by actually paying for stuff, I’m supporting local small business. Which reminds me, if you only use Groupons and Living Social deals when you patronize local and small businesses, you’re actually not helping them at all. It could be argued you’re hurting them. Just my two cents.

This week is American Craft Beer Week and for the first time, our local brewers and their fans have coalesced to create Connecticut Craft Beer Week. There are events all over the state… well, not too many in Litchfield or Fairfield Counties, but whatever. It’s a rather impressive thing, especially for a fairly nascent industry in an oppressively legislated business doing it for the first time.

This week has also brought me (finally) to the difficult realization that there is simply no way I can ever “review every Connecticut beer.” I just can’t. I WANT to, but with so many new breweries doing one-offs and limited releases, it’s impossible. Especially with new breweries in Stamford and Stratford and Stonington… Not exactly easy places to get to on weeknights after work – and that’s even IF I didn’t have things like a job and a family.

hopsSo what better way to lament this admission than to bring that family of mine over to Max Burger in West Hartford Center for dinner? Especially since they, perhaps because they sell more NEBCO beer than anyone else in Hartford County, had this special cask ready to roll?

No better way. None.

I arrived at five and just like the last time there was a special NEBCO cask at a Max restaurant in West Hartford, the cask was un-tappable until James from the brewery showed up with the super-secret bunghole tool.

Sigh. Always an issue with the bunghole.

James arrived around 5:30 and so did my wife and younger son. All was well. The cask was tapped and a cheer arose from the bar. I’m getting used to NEBCO special releases drawing cheers now, as this was the third time I’ve witnessed it. Does this happen around the country at similar events with similarly awesome breweries? (Serious question).

Our waitress did well in procuring me one of the first pours, just as the restaurant’s manager Doug was introducing himself to my wife. I politely smiled at their pleasantries, but let’s be honest here, I just wanted to taste this thing.

winking-emoticonOh. My. GOD! Emoji. This beer is Ah! May! ZING! Emoji. Damnit, there I go again.

Oh my god, this beer is amazing. As I explained to someone on the Twitters, “take a Gandhi Bot and amp it up by a factor of ten.” The cask was dry-hopped with Simcoe hops and while Simcoe doesn’t have the cache as, say, Mosaic or Nelson Sauvin, it’s a great hop.

If I was smart, I’d know which hops go into straight up Gandhi. I would guess lots of Simcoe, as it has both pine and citrus aroma and flavor. The amazing thing that NEBCO is able to do is to impart MORE pine and MORE citrus but keep the beer perfectly balanced.

And smooth. I’d go so far as to say this cask was “smooooove” rather than just “smooth.” I can’t imgine how many other 9% double IPA’s out there are as drinkable as a Gandhi-Bot. Heck, there aren’t too many DIPA’s that are as smooth as this intensely double-dry hopped cask of it.

I think it’s time we start referring to the NEBCO brewers as the magicians they are. It’s just ridiculous.

Overall Rating: A+
Rating vs. Similar style: n/a

Beer Advocate’s Reviews of the Double Dry-Hopped Gandhi Bot DIPA, n/a
New England Brewing Company
NEBCO’s facebook page
Back to CTMQ’s Reviews of NEB beers
Back to CTMQ’s Connecticut Beer Page
Back to CT Breweries page

Leave a Comment

The Out Campaign: Scarlet Letter of Atheism