Review: Lagunitas Sucks Brown Shugga' Substitute Ale

Thanks Jonny for this treat I would've never found in Manitoba! I've seen Lagunitas Sucks plastered all over the place on /r/beerporn, but never thought I'd ever get the chance to actually try it in person. When I first saw Lagunitas sucks, I thought it was a fake beer by the Lagunitas Brewing Company, to poke fun at themselves, not an actual beer, the label looks like something one would have come up with in Microsoft Word back in the early 2000s for a middle school project, yet amazingly awesome.

Appearance: Pours a very lustrous amber-honey, pretty see through, a beige creamy head and decent amount of microcarbonation going on in this beer.

Aroma: Floral and bitter hops make the first appearance, so if you are familiar with West Coast style IPAs, it has a familiar aroma to that. There's an aroma in here that gives off a bit of my parents' old barn: a bit of woodiness (pine), a bit of straw, and a bit of I don't know what that is. There's also some surprisingly sweet notes coming out of this beer, some brown sugar, hint of citrus and pineapple.

Taste: Floral and bitter piney hops take front stage in this production. Following the hops is a pineapple and brown sugar desserty sweetness that's hard to not love. For the aftertaste, a bit of a bitterness coming from the hops is currently present. I don't remember the last time I had an IPA/DIPA/IIPA that had pineapple notes, so it's interesting and it works so well!

Overall Thoughts: Lagunitas is so sucking tasty for sucking sakes! It's an amazing DIPA with a bucket full of floral and bitter hops, with a great backing of sweet tropical pineapple giving it an interesting session for yours truly. Love the label, love the aroma, love the taste, would buy this if it was available in Manitoba. For being 7.85% ABV and 63 IBU, it's incredibly easy drinking.

lagunitas.com/beers/sucks/