“Each year GUBNA is reinvented with a new hop bill. Concurrent hop selection panels at both the Colorado and North Carolina breweries picked some of the season’s highest quality and most exciting hops to load up this formidable and complex Imperial IPA. Brewed with whole-leaf Galena hops, our brewers then add Columbus and Sorachi Ace to GUBNA 5.0, which spikes the beer with spicy, blackcurrant notes and subtle citrus overtones. GUBNA is dry-hopped with prodigious amounts of El Dorado, Comet, and Chinook hops, creating a dank, dense, pineapple & lemon zest nose and unique blend of grapefruit, apricot, and herbs, while finishing clean and bitter. The GUB sits on a base of Rye, North American Pale, and Munich malts, which offers a smooth and flavorful backbone to support the gargantuan load of hops.”
Served in an IPA glass. Gubna pours to a slightly hazy honey amber complexion with a frothy two finger head shaping up on top. Retention is good as it eventually settles to a thick overlay with a fine lace being weaved as it ebbs. The aroma has a bit of everything, and it makes sense once we see a hop bill of Galena, Columbus and Sorachi Ace in the boil then a generous dry hopping with El Dorado, Comet and Chinook. Grapefruit plays quite a big hand but so does this lovely floral scent of pine needle and lavender. Hints of stonefruit and lychee provide a tropical sweetness as subtle spicy notes of aniseed and white pepper cut through. We get a bit of tart lemon from the Sorachi as well. Lovely stuff, really well layered. The texture of the beer is remarkably smooth and palatable for a monster 10% ABV. The medium body is held up well on the tongue. A whopping 100 IBU is also incredibly well masked. The front palate presents some citrus, inclined to say grapefruit and orange with a light floral note laced through. Only the slightest bit of warmth as the booze develops across the mid. Soothing malts carry forward as tropical fruits and pine return to punctuate this classy, crisp and unbelievably mellow finish. Jeez, did we just smash down a 10% IIPA or a cruisy little 6%er? This beauty is super clean, somehow approachable and dangerously sessional. Not your standard summary of an imperial IPA….but then again this isn’t your standard imperial IPA! Simply world class stuff here.