A 400lb Monkey In The Room

While doing a little research about this beer, I found out that Left Hand gave it the name 400 lb Monkey as a sort of "tribute" to a comment made by their VP of Brewing Operations in an interview. During the height of the proliferation of IPA's a few years ago, he was asked why Left Hand was not brewing one and he responded with "any monkey can throw 400 pounds of hops into a kettle and call it an IPA". I guess he wasn't a big fan of all the IPA's that had flooded onto the market at the time. When Left Hand did finally decide to produce an IPA, they chose to brew an English style which is more malty and less bold then a typical American style IPA. In fact, some may actually be disappointed with it if they think the name makes any implications regarding its flavour.

Dark golden colour with a white frothy head. Very light aromas of malt and floral hops. Biscuity and toasty malt flavours up front with a smooth moderate bitter finish but with no lingering harshness. I think it would make a great session beer if it was somewhere around 5% ABV instead of the 6.7% that it is.