Hopvine Brewing Company

4030 Fox Valley Center Dr

Aurora, IL, United States of America

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Logs for this venue

Three beers in, I really can't judge. Mango & mineral. Sad Matt didn't win the "window Stalin." :(((
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A fruity but dry stout. Tastes kind of like pure Baker's chocolate.
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Stalin is spelled "i-n-s-t-a-l-l-a-t-i-o-n."
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I actually kind of like it. I agree with the words I used before.
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BINGO!!!! Bar bingo livin' large tonight, baby! I win you some free corn fritters! I got chu! You know, this doesn't taste of rye at all.
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Lovely, spicy-bubbled goose.
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It's like floral with pumpkin, pumpkin spice and cinnamon. This is so weird.
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Odd IPA for 121 IBU, not bitter. Slight Tutti-frutti aroma, burnt bitter chocolate and a malty finish. I'm not in love with it. Roy seems enthralled by how weird it is.
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A nice, fairly thick feeling hefe.
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More fruity than sour. There is some vinegar taste, but I don't call that "sour".
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Sort of like a light Belgian tripel flavor. As I drink a bit more, it gets this somewhat floral flavor.
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I actually like this, a nice, fairly mild, English pale with a good balance of malt and bitterness. A beer that tastes like a beer should taste!
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It's just kind of like cherry soda. Not syrupy or anything bad, just more like a soda than a beer.
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A reasonable sour, catches me a bit at the back of the throat. The one thing I'd say is that it's not a sour-beer sort of sour, more of a sour fruit sort of sour. It's hard to explain. But it gets points deducted for that .
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It actually smelled smoky. Very cucumber sort of bitterness .Otherwise fairly light .
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Didn't taste any rye, but seemed a pleasant enough light saison.
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Very much seemed like a solid Russian Imperial Stout -- especially after the Solemn Oath stout. Roasty and medium thick, not too bitter on the backend. Nice creamy aftertaste.
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A dank-sweet bitter IPA, not extremely bitter, but bitter through and through.
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Mild and light with a hint of cinnamon
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Very dark, like a porter. In fact, this basically tasted like the cinilla without the vanilla or the cinammon, and actually that made it very nice. Light coffee notes on an otherwise mellow dark beer.
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Lots of yeast dryness that followed closely on the Yes, Dear. I'd be hard pressed to name anything Belgian about this "tripel" -- seemed more like a American hefe with some decided wood notes. A bit of grape from the barreling was interesting but more confusing for me.
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Murky strawberry-ish fruit flavor, which I guess is better than strong fake strawberry. A lot of yeast tang was unpleasant at first, and decidedly not refreshing, but having a bit of fried food helped the character immensely, losing a few h's off the Meh rating.
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A light porter, smooth with bright, sweetish notes of vanilla and cinnamon on top. I liked that the vanilla didn't taste tacked on, but otherwise this didn't stick in my memory much.
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Starts a little sweet .Then it tastes like an IPA that has been smothered in something that mitigates the horrible bitterness .
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Clear and refreshing. But nothing stands out .
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What it says on the label .Fresh and open. Very refreshing. I want to give it a solid,it just doesn't quite have anything that stands out.
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There is a hint of strawberry in the scent .But the taste is dominated by blooming yeast.
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Smells likea stout . Tastes like a dark stout that someone mixed pre-used coffee grounds into. I'm betting this would have been better without the coffee addition. I'd say stick with the Ukranium Krusher.
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I wonder if "Imperial IPA" is code for not an IPA at all. This is cherry medicinal sweet, such that I thought it was barrel aged at first . Butit like barrel aging a nothing beer rather than a stout or something strong. Weird.
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Very forward with the cinnamon, making me think of a former root beer, but as that fades, the dark stout flavor floods in. I think this is very interesting, though Roy didn't get the kick off cinnamon and vanilla and would have rather seen it barrel aged.
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So, this starts like one of those weak soda-like mild ales, but at the end it gets this hint of nutty roastedness. The nutty roasty flavor builds on the second and third draw. Really, the only thing saving this beer is the occasional roasty flavor
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Has a sort of effervescent scent. The taste is one of those soda beers, which tend to not be my favorite. The taste is sort of dirty dish water with lite carbonation. Neither sweet nor bitter, just bleu
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"Hoppy American Brown Ale" I think is code for Brown Ale mixed with an IPA. Because that's what it tastes like. A smooth, almost stoutish front, followed by the flavor of Mild pine-IPA. It's certainly interesting.
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Roy says (because he refuses to write comments) that if he wanted a root beer, he would order a root beer. For myself, it smells just like a sasparilla root beer. It starts out tasting like a good sasprilla root beer, then at the very end it turns into an undistinguished beer. I'm just not sure what to rate this.
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So, the scent reminds me of a Czech pilsner. Honestly, the taste is a combination of that and something smoother and a bit sweeter. So, it lacks the terrible bitter clarity, but it's nice in that it has some of the taste without the brackish flavor of a German pils.
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No real scent. The taste is like a stout with somewhat icky caramel. I'm still considering lowering the rating. On the second sip the bitterness kicks in, but the caramel develops a lingering nasty aftertaste. And the rating drops.
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Scene of coffee, carmel and cola. Taste is heavily roasted coffee, but nevertheless mild. As you work your way down you actually get a bunny pf cola in the taste, which is unfortunate. But I'm still going to rate it a solid for the dry roasted taste of the first few sips. Nota bene: no real pumpkin to speak of.
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I like this, but I tend to like saisons. Sadly I don't really think I have the vocabulary to describe these.
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The bitterness is different from an IPA, though I'm not sure I can characterize it. Scent is of hop florals. The base is more like a Brown Ale base. Interesting, if not entirely to my taste.
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Tastes like a trippel. It's perfectly good, I'm just not super into trippels for some reason.
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This is like a light version of a dark wheat, but with this pop of something lighter, like a hint of a saison.
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No scent, just a hint of effervescence. The taste is understated, with a bit of bitterness and dark red fruit.
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Light and fruity, with a nice apricot underlay to the hefeweizen.
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For a kolsch, this seems to emphasize bitterness and not emphasize the cold clarity I associate with the type. It might also be a but watery, though masked by the bitterness.
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