I’ve had my share of Clown Shoes beer. They haven’t bottled a beer that I’ve particularly liked. For the past few years if ever I saw a bottle with those shiny, big, goofy shoes on it I would only grab it to move it over if it was between me and another beer. “Move over, Clown Shoes. There’s an interesting beer behind you.” But recently while I was slinking through the massive craft beer section of my go-to grocery store something from Clown Shoes finally grabbed my attention: “Galactica”.
“I wonder if that is called ‘Galactica’ because it contains galaxy hops?” I thought. So, I picked up a bottle with a genuine interest. I read the label. “Dry hopped with galaxy hops.” I didn’t think further. I put it in my shopping cart. Dry hopped beers are awesome. Galaxy hops are awesome. Imperial IPA’s are awesome. So it was destiny that this beer would be awesome. Right? RIGHT?
WRONG. Clown Shoes managed to make a decent beer with Galactica, but somehow managed to brew it so the dry-hopped characteristics as well as the tropical fruit and melon flavors of galaxy hops were as easy to detect as someone at a Nickelback concert who isn’t tone deaf.
Clown shoes, I admit, has great presentation. The liquid is clear with a copper color that contains a reddish tint. It practically glows. The head is off-white, 2 fingers thick, and sticks around for a while during the drinking session. The aroma is malty with pine, citrus, sweet melon and passion fruit. Everything until that point made a great sale. But when I tasted the beer, all I tasted was fucking SNAKE OIL.
The taste was good, but none of the galaxy hop profiles came out once the liquid hit my tongue. Clown Shoes is buttery, malty, with caramel and pine. But mostly it has a flat and flavorless bitterness. The aftertaste was bitter with the profiles of citrus fruit rinds. It almost tasted like the dry-hop flowers were bad. The texture was serviceable, too. The liquid was mostly watery, with a normal amount of C02.The lacing was quite alluring with thick and foamy webs around my IPA glass.
This beer has received much better reviews that the rating I’m giving to it. So by all means, give it a try if you see it. Chances are you’ll like it, even better than me. But I drank an entire 4-pack before writing this, and I decided I just won’t be putting on those big, round, funny shoes again any time soon.
Beer Type: Imperial PA
ABV: 8.0%
IBU: 86
Style: 6/10
Overall: 6.5/10
