DogZilla Black IPA

My favourite Torontonian living in the States brought a bottle of this stuff with her on a recent visit home, so I decided to include her thoughts in the review--also another much loved person was there, so we brought him in on the fun.  The more the merrier, right?

DogZilla is a product of Laughing Dog Brewing out of Ponderay, Idaho. It comes in big ol' 22oz bottles. Unfortunately, the alcohol content portion of the label was smudged, so I had to look it up on the brewery website: 6.9% and 69IBUs. The label features a ferocious looking dog monster on a rampage.

DogZilla pours a deep, cloudy brown, topped with a very thick tan head.  Said my two amigos, it looks a bit like a rootbeer float. The aroma was of a pretty mild, evergreen quality.

According to my guest reviewers, DogZilla was well balanced and smooth, though the blend of bitter hops and dark malt gave the impression of a slightly burnt taste. Both were expecting more hops.

My own take was that the molasses notes and malty profile were fairly unexpected in a Black IPA. There was less in-your-face hop bitterness than some other beers in the category. There was a little bit of dark fruit to the finish, which was quite pleasant.

Displaced Torontonian: 7.5 out of 10.  Guest Reviewer #2: 6.0 out of 10. Yours truly: 7.0 out of 10.