Chillwave Double IPA

Review Date 8/24/2015 By John Staradumsky

           

Great Lakes Chillwave Double IPA has a best by date of 5/31/2015 on it. According to Great Lakes (one of my very favorite breweries) this beer is released in March. Seriously though? Two months to drink a mammoth Double IPA? That’s a very short window for such a strong, highly hopped beer.

Chillwave is the second DIPA I’ve had from Great Lakes. The other was Lake Eerie Monster Imperial IPA, and as we all know Imperial IPA and Double IPA are really the same thing. The two beers do have hop character all their own, however, and it’s not uncommon these days for breweries to have many, many different examples in the same style.

From the label:

Great Lakes surfers work hard for their thrills. They wake before dawn, listening to the weather report like school kids hoping for a snow day. If the waves are worthy, they ride. No matter the cold, no matter the season, no matter the frozen crystals gathering in their beards, or the wind-whipping, white knuckled conditions they must face. To these chill rust belt surf dudes, it’s all good. Yeah, it sounds a little crazy, but we didn’t craft our double IPA for the faint of heart. With a flash of Mosaic hops and a kiss of honey malt, it’s a rush in a bottle. Ride our Chillwave. Then go out and find your own.

Great Lakes Chillwave Double IPA has an alcohol content of 9.4% alcohol by volume with an impressive 80 IBUs. I drank my bottle on August 6th, about two months after the date Great Lakes suggest you drink it by. It has been refrigerated in my beer fridge since I got it.

Great Lakes Chillwave Double IPA pours to a brilliant orange amber color with a medium sized head of creamy foam and a very, very tropical fruity nose of passion fruit and pineapple. Taking a sip I get some light caramel malt up front followed by …yes….waves of heady tropical fruit. Mangoes, passion fruit, pineapple, all balanced out by a peppery, herbal, very bitter hop finish at the last and a sobering alcohol warmth. If that makes sense.

I’ll confess, this is amazing folks and I usually don’t go for these fruit loopy brews. The difference here is the peppery character against the tropical Mosaic fruit notes that really, really works for me. It’s a beer I’d absolutely buy again if I were to come across it. When exactly are you coming to Georgia Great Lakes?

Glad I tried it?  T

Would I rebuy it??

 

*Pricing data accurate at time of review or latest update. For reference only, based on actual price paid by reviewer.

(B)=Bottled, Canned

(D)=Draft





 

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