Brewery: Rogness Brewing Company
Beer: Gigantophis
Type: American Double/Imperial IPA
ABV: 9.0%
Character: Strong Hop flavor finishing with a touch of French oak
Metal Connection: MERCYFUL FATE – Egypt
The owners of Rogness Brewing Company are also the owners of Austin Homebrew Supply. They have experimented with many different hops and exotic ingredients. Now they are sharing their recipes through Rogness Brewing Company on drought and in 22 oz bottles.
This was my first bottle purchase from this brewery and I was excited to try this beer. I had already had their Ost Porter on draft a while back at The Friendly Spot, but way before I had began this website. So here is my first write up on a Rogness beer.
Using a pint glass, the beer poured a dark amber color with a very thin off white head, leaving little to no lacing down the glass.
I was a bit thrown off by the aroma of this beer. I was expecting this to really hit me with the hop smells of citrus, or pine like it suggested, but instead I get all malts. Smell of brown sugar, and caramel are real strong. Very similar to that of an Amber Ale or Red Ale. Very little hop aroma shows up faintly at the end, and it’s mostly a pine aroma.
The taste is exactly the same as aroma. It is all caramel up front, brown sugar in the body, with a slight bite of alcohol, and a very faint taste of hops in the end. The taste of pine, and orange peel lingers for a while afterwards, which I liked. I was just really hoping for a more hoppy taste overall with this beer.
I am on the fence with this one. I wanted to really love this beer, but all I can really say is that I “liked” this beer. I would give it another shot, maybe on tap, so I can see if there is a difference. I know these guys are capable of making fine crafted beers, as I really enjoyed the Ost Porter, and I still have a few more of their bottles to go through.
Since the name of this beer represents a prehistoric snake which was known to be the largest living species of snake, and lived approximately 40 million years ago in the southern Sahara where Egypt and Algeria are, I thought the best song to connect this beer to was none other than “Egypt.” A song that was always on rotation on Mtv’s Headbanger’s Ball show back around 1993. This song was the opening track to Mercyful Fate’s 1993 album, In the Shadows.
Gigantophis (scream in your best King Diamond voice!), BeerMetalDude!
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