One hundred bittering units (IBUs) seems a rather daunting statistic to read when you’re about to sample a new beer. Can a beer with that much bitterness really be drinkable? The answer, on the basis of this tasting, is a resounding yes.

What makes a beer pleasurable to drink is harmony. Some people call it balance, but that’s perhaps an inadequate term that ignores the fact that sometimes hops can outmanoeuvre malt in the taste (or vice versa) but still these key ingredients combine perfectly to deliver a great end result.

Harmony in Sierra Nevada’s Hoptimum means that hops positively lead the way, generating those massive 100 IBUs, but they are fully supported, even neutralized up to a point, by the full, sweet malt body.

A rich amber colour in the glass, the beer has a brisk carbonation that lifts big, inciting aromas to the nose. Sticky, sappy hop notes rise first, backed with a floral, fruity smell, reminiscent of canned peaches and mango, with perhaps a pinch of sherbet lemon.

For the record, German Magnum hops are used for bittering, with Simcoe, Citra, Chinook and a so-far unnamed new strain of hop adding the real character later as aroma hops in the kettle or through dry hopping.

In order to achieve that important harmony in the face of such a powerful hop onslaught, the beer has to be strong and full bodied.

Residual Sweetness

The amount of malt required to generate sugars that can be fermented up to the heady strength of 10.4% means that there is a fair amount of residual sweetness in the beer, and that is very much needed here to counter the tangy burn that the sappy hop flowers leave on the tongue and throat.

Malt flavours are kept deliberately low, however, and there’s also a little wheat in the grist to lighten the tone.

Tropical fruits again leach out of the hops, along with bitter, zesty grapefruit, to add a rainbow of flavours to the taste but it’ll come as no surprise to learn that the finish is dry, firmly bitter and laced with yet more tangy, sappy hop notes.

With the malt sweetness subsiding, now the alcohol plays its part, combining with intensity of the hops to leave a pleasant warmth on the palate.

As you’d expect from the headline IBU figure, the 2011 version of Hoptimum is a huge beer, a fresh-tasting flavour bomb with loads of depth. But, even though hops inevitably win through in the end, harmony is its middle name.