Based on our time there in 2008 and 2009, we can totally recommend this festival as a must-visit if you love American Beer and can get to London.  Scratch that, if you love Beer in general and can get to London.

Here's some pictures from the American Beer Festival in 2009.

Posted via email from beerviking’s posterous

What I Say:

Dark brown beauty.  A caramel, grainy with balanced hop coming through nose.  From the nose, I was expecting it to be a lot heavier and surprised by a Sweet and Sour (the rye malt?) giving way to what I would have describe as a sweet, cherry, bitter hoppiness, that fades leaving you with a wonderful after taste.

I know this is in effect to be a Double/Imperial IPA but I would suggest that this actually could be considered more along the lines of a Belgian trippel and would be curious to taste it in a flight against such.

What They Say:

Before that, I have to have an additional say with I love the fact that the Shmaltz Brewing Company (who are behind He’brew and Coney Island) published the recipe to this find brew.

Malts:  2-row, Rye Ale Malt, Torrified Rye, Crystal Rye 75, Crystal Malt 65, Wheat, Kiln Amber, Caramel 70

Hops:  Warrior, Cascade, Simcoe, Crystal, Chinook, Amarillo, Centennial. Dry Hopped with Amarillo and Crystal

Ladies and Gentlemen, Shmaltz Brewing Co. is proud to introduce Bittersweet Lenny’s R.I.P.A. Brewed with an obscene amount of malts and hops. Shocking flavors – far beyond contemporary community standards. We cooked up the straight dope for the growing minions of our nation’s Radical Beer junkies.

And this bottle conditioned beauty is wonderful and goes straight to the top of the charts of my Christmas beers.

It poured a dark reddish colour with almost no head.  You can get the hops and malt right on the nose.

Taste wise, you get some sweetness before the hops kick in and that goes to quite a dry finish with a nice mouthful of yummy making you want even more.

I can’t find any details about this except for on the bottle. 

Weltons Imperial Festive is from Weltons the Real Ale brewers (again) from Horsham, West Sussex.  Looking at their site you realise that keeping up with their beer production is going to be quite a fun task in itself.

Best before date on my bottle:  25/12/2009 (love it).

Anyway, here’s what the bottle says:

This is a BOTTLE CONDITIONED, mahogany coloured beer, full of rich flavours from the Imperial malts and Admiral hops.

Scores:

Beer 17

Christmas Beer 18