Two Hearted Ale - Bell's Brewery, Inc.

Chadpaq

North Carolina

4.53/5  rDev +6.1%
look: 4 | smell: 4.5 | taste: 4.5 | feel: 4 | overall: 5

I'm mystified that I've never reviewed this beer. This baby is my go-to brew, the six-pack I always reach for at my local grocery store when the only thing ahead of me for the next twelve hours is a good movie and a (relatively) solid night of sleep. But it's more than that. When I travel to some of my favorite local restaurants that really don't have awesome beer selections, this is always the best thing on the menu. That isn't to say that Two Hearted is some default that one decides on when no other craft beer is available. No, sir. This ain't your daddy's...um...Sammy Adams Boston Lager. This is a true-blue, purebred IPA, so if you haven't had it, you better be prepared for sheer happiness...hop bliss...hoppyness.

The beer pours out a sort of golden-orange, much like those moons that you'll only catch when you're out in the park doing god-knows-what with your latest lover...huh? Hey, there was that one time... Okay, there's no point for personal anecdotes in beer reviews. At any rate, the beer pours a golden-orange, and it's quite attractive if I do say so myself. The liquid, though quite permeable by light, does hinder said permeation, if only slightly, through a sort of miniscule graininess within the beer. Yeast, perhaps? We'll say "Yes" for the time being, unless anyone calls fault toward that. Moral of this slight nonsequitur: Dis beer luk dern nice!

The smell...ah, the smell. Initially, inhalation would leave me chomping at the bit. Pure hoppy bliss! Jesus, how trite. I wonder how many times that sentence has been used. I'm probably guilty for some 40% of all-time usage. Whatever. It's so true! People say cliches become just that because they are extremely, and sometimes dangerously, accurate. Anyway, this so-called "hoppy bliss" transcends into a sort of fruity medley that makes me think of pure Floridian citrus: Grapefruit. Orange. Some lemon? (It should be noted that my dad drinks this stuff with a lemon. I'm of the "No fruit in your beer" school. Obviously, I wasn't educated by my father.) Yummy. Hoppy. Fruity. Can I drink it already? (I actually took a sip quite some time ago; I'm just too verbose to mention it.)

This beer is one of the most familiar, and most comfortable, to ever grace my palate. All of the fruity notes remain, and I also get the SLIGHTEST bit of sweet, sweet malt at the end of each sip. The alcohol, fairly high at over seven percent, is completely hidden. This beer is the quintessential American IPA in all aspects, and I think it really takes the cake in the taste department. I'm so hesitant to give out perfect scores here, and don't think I ever have, because I simply have not consumed enough IPAs to TRULY know what perfection is. Put as far as I'm concerned, the 4.5 score here might as well be a five, and I could definitely see myself editing that bad boy in the near future.

"Mouthfeel" is always trivial to me. It's an IPA. All IPAs feel the same to me. I'm sure that's going to run a true beer connoisseur the wrong way, but I really mean it. Hoppy beers feel the same in my mouth. This one certainly doesn't commit any injustices between my pearly whites as it absorbs into my tastebuds, but it doesn't warrant anything above a "good" score; it didn't speak to me and say "Chad, I'd really like it if you bumped my Mouthfeel rating here." Therefore, that's why it received the score it did.

I'll throw another cliche in here: If I were stranded on a desert island, and could only drink one beer for the rest of my life, it would be this guy. This is the ONLY department that I'm comfortable awarding perfect scores to, and it definitely goes to Two Hearted. No beer is more drinkable than this. It can be sipped and appreciated; it can be consumed with a good meal, perhaps some grilled chicken or seared tuna; shit, it can be swigged from the bottle on a late-summer eve just as the sun is dipping below the surf on a South Carolina beach (Yes, personal, experience.) Most of all, I could drink this stuff all night...every night...and never, ever get tired of the taste. Mondays, give me Russian Imperials...Wednesday, I'll take a Belgian Strong, if you please...But Two Hearted? Give me that fucker any day of the week.

My favorite beer to-date. Don't know if my ratings reflect it...don't care. This stuff has, literally, gotten me arrested and gotten me laid. At its core, this is all that is great about beer. (Cliche? Fuck it.)

Serving type: bottle

01-09-2011 05:35:10 | More by Chadpaq

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