Lagunitas Brewhouse - The Hairy Eyeball

Tonight’s Thirsty Thursday featured beer is The Hairy Eyeball from Lagunitas Brewery in Petaluma, California. Despite the curiously creative name, it isn’t bad! If eyeballs taste like this, eyeballs are tasty. My first impressions: it’s a lager, similar to Dogfish Head’s Pangaea, with a nose of moist bread and dry timber. In the glass, it looks like liquid cherrywood with a brown but brilliant ruby-like finish. \The Hairy Eyeball has an intense and spicy flavor profile and is really all over the board – my tongue got hints of grape juice, licorice, Robotussin, and Buckley’s cough syrup with slight chocolate overtones.  Despite having 56 IBU’s, there’s practically zero hoppiness in this beer. I would call this a turnoff, but I’ve spent the last month drinking single, double, and triple IPA’s so I’ll let it slide! The Eyeball tickles your nose but it’s hardly pungent – in addition to the smells above, you’ll catch aromas of anise, licorice, and hot metal.

The Hairy Eyeball is stale and prickly in your mouth, and pretty difficult to swallow, yet leaves you feeling pleasantly numb on that sweet road to inebriation. Overall, this was a decent beer – while it is a flavorful lager, it was way too bitter and not in a good way. It tasted too much like medicine for me to drink it all the time, but some days, I’m just in one of those moods. My roommate had a more favorable view of it, and wished I could get more; unfortunately, I had to travel to Petalumas for this beer and purchase it directly from the brewery. It’s pretty reasonable at the brewery – they were selling 12oz bottles of any given beer for $3 a piece at the bar.

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