Welcome to another Pint Sized Review! Today we are drinking This One Goes to 11 Ale! An imperial red IPA by Bell’s Brewery. 

Before I begin, I just want to thank the patrons on our Patreon, especially Becky Wilson! She’s been a fan since the beginning, and we have some plans to update this site together and create an app to locate rare and limited release beers. It’s like Untappd, but not toxic and full of Haze-bros. 

I’m the only review you need. 

Also a reminder that I’m more than willing to take your money on my Patreon. You got disposable income? I could be disposable, and money is the root of all evil. Therefore, the more money you give me, the closer to God you get.

Hey, that line seems to work for Joel Osteen. Let’s party, sinner.

“As long as there’s, you know, sex and drugs, I can do without the rock and roll.”

Taking a look at this beer, it’s pouring out cloudy amber in color. Looks like rusty water, almost a hazy garnet. Big, soapy, nice finger of head. 

Why am I using body parts as descriptions? “This has a liver’s worth of booze in it. You can tell because it has a foot of ankle in its ribcage.”

“Smell the Glove”

If you, like me, were to stick your nose in the brew, you’ll note that it smells just like freshly mulched pine put through a woodchipper!

If you were to crossbreed a sappy pine tree with whatever the hell citric fruits grow on (I assume they grow on vines or underground like sour root vegetables or tropical mushrooms), then threw that Monsanto monstrosity into as blender and then added a dash of honey nut scooters (we go off-brand in this household), you’d get what I’m smelling.

“Lick My Love Pump.”

Taking a sip, this tastes less like hair metal (even if hair metal was alive in the era of good beer) and more like stoner rock. I feel like I’m watching The Wizard of Oz but instead of Dark Side of the Moon I’m listening to …Like Clockwork by Queens of the Stone Age and no, I’m not taking any questions about at this time. 

Hops come swinging out front leaning more towards coniferous rather than citrus. It’s like the forests of the pacific northwest sloshing around in my mouth. 

If Bigfoot drinks beer this is what he orders at the bar. 

After you get used to the onslaught of weed’s more legal cousin, you can parse out the HUGE MALTY BACKBONE. How did I not get that from my first few sips? Bready, caramel-y, and like stated earlier, honey nut scooter-y. 

The malt is like a graham cracker.

The hop profile… just imagine this: It’s the whole hundred-acre woods. Thor flies over swinging his hammer Mjolnir with lightning cracking through the blackened skies and causes all of the trees to ignite. The sap liquifies to a less viscous state and runs to the base of the trees, re-solidifying as the fire dies down. The base of the trees remain and are now absolutely petrified consisting of concentrated sap (also known as “pitch”). 

Now throw that into a glass full of blended camping delicacies. There’s your hop presence. 

“What’s wrong with being sexy?”

I almost talked about the mouthfeel first in today’s description, because right at the top of the taste my mouth almost felt like it was given a mild paralytic. This is definitely an 11% rock opera of brewing. 

This beer doesn’t taste boozy in the sense that you get with a whiskey barrel-aged beer, but there’s definitely something there. It’s got a thicc body (OBLIGATORY “BIG BOTTOM” REFERENCE) to it with a numbing property. It could be the hop burn, it could be the ethanol, it could be goddamn lidocaine, I’ve no clue. But my tongue’s sensation, at the risk of sounding pandering, has been cranked up to 11 and I can’t feel my face. 

My breath smells like I made out with an Ent. 

“It’s such a fine line between stupid, and uh…clever.”

This is a fantastic and well-balanced beer even while just throwing the EQ setting all the way to the top and jet-setting right over what I thought a limit could be. I could drink this beer all day and be an absolute nightmare to my wife and I wouldn’t feel guilty because I wouldn’t be able to feel anything. 

11% ABV, 11 varieties of hops, 11 different malts, this beer is so dumb it’s good and not just good but amazing. 

I’d recommend pairing this beer with a designated driver, proper ear protection, carnitas tacos, peppercorn-dusted fries, and surviving the wall of death in a concert you didn’t sign up for. 

A beer is like a song. There are styles, similar beats, and a message behind most of them. Make me a playlist! Got a brew you want to share with me? I take submissions and donations to the cause! Email me at dennis@thepintsizedreview.com or shoot me a message on any of my social media accounts. You can follow me on Twitter @drinkpintsized, Instagram @thepintsizedreview, or the way your parents get their news: on Facebook. Just search “The Pint Sized Review” and you’ll find me. Donate on our Patreon, and if you can’t please like, share our posts, and join the mailing list so you always know when we are putting out some stupid stuff for a laugh and maybe, just maybe, some education. 

Peace!

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