Big Kahuna Imperial IPA

A beefy and bruising imperial IPA that I’ve been hoping to acquire for a while now, Spearhead Brewing Company’s Big Kahuna Imperial IPA is a 10%, 100 IBU ale from Kingston, Ontario. Brewed, like its li’l brudder Spearhead Hawaiian Style Pale Ale, with a measure of pineapple juice, Big Kahuna is a clear, bronze ale. It comes in 473mL cans, from which it emerges with a layer of creamy suds.

Big Kahuna has a sweet and juicy aroma backed with some feisty hops—Cascade, Cashmere, Hallertau Blanc, and Warrior are the quartet listed in the copy. It is an extremely flavourful beer, balanced between a sweet, candy-tinged pineapple juiciness on the front end and a raucous, commanding bitterness at the back end.

At 10%, this beer has lights-out potential. It also has oodles of agreeable flavour. It’s the polar opposite of subtle, but Big Kahuna is an unapologetically beastly imperial IPA. I liked it a whole lot.

Rating: 9.0 out of 10.