With a purposeful grimace and a terrible sound he pulls the spinning high tension wires down!! I remember as a kid watching the Godzilla movies and just loving the carnage and destruction. I would watch all the hokey monster movies with Mothra, King Kong, that
flying turtle thing! They were awesome, they’d fight each other, and then Godzilla turned into a nice guy. He would defend the little kids from the army accidentally bombing them. Then as I grew up I really appreciated the off sync lips of the actors as their lines were translated into English. And the guys in the monster suits destroying the model towns that were Tokyo.
If you look at Godzilla and look at a Hop you’ll notice some similar characteristics! Hops are green, so is Godzilla, they are scaly, so is Godzilla, Hops are shaped like Godzilla’s head. I could go on, but you get the point, there is a symbiotic relationship between hops and the childhood monster! So when it came time for the folks at Laughing Dog Brewery to name their Black IPA what better name than DogZilla! The hop monster of Sandpoint, Idaho!…
DogZilla is a Black IPA that tastes like the best of a fresh hopped IPA and a porter blended into a dark creamy and delicious brew that drinks like a meal! It is like the best of fusion beer crafting taking the great mouth feel from the porter, the intense hoppiness of the IPA, and calming it with the sweet maltiness of a nut brown ale, all together in one glass.
There isn’t much of a nose on the DogZilla which was a little surprising given the intense flavors within the bottle. It poured a deep brown with touches of amber on the edges of the glass with a creamy tan head. Its flavor was infused with hops and was a little surprising given its color and just when you think there is nothing else the hops fade and the sweet maltiness and caramel flavors invade your palate. Just when you think it might be getting too sweet, there is a hop infusion on the backside that leaves a nice pleasing finish. As I said before, the mouth feel on this brew is heavy, almost thick, deeply satisfying and creamy. The 22 oz size on this bottle really did satisfy, and where I normally would have eaten a larger meal, the dogZilla was filling, and stood up as a part of my meal.
This is truly a great brew. The fusion of the dark beer and the IPA is done in a masterful way, and Fred Colby over at Laughing Dog Brewery has created a great beer that celebrates the best of the hop harvest!
-Don
Beer & Whiskey Brothers 
NICE intro, Don!
I’m surprised the aroma was that muted for you. I was impressed with the intense complex aroma from the bottle I had. For me it was the best part of the beer. Here was my take on the beer -> http://www.simplybeer.com/blog/2009/10/13/laughing-dog-dogzilla-black-ipa/
I liked the bitterness of this beer, because I like bitter beers. I however didn’t find it to be too much, and enjoyed the fact that through the whole thing That intense flavor never wained. Maybe I was a little plugged up. Kids, school, colds and flu, not to mention allergies in Idaho!
Left this comment at your site, but I’m not sure it took, so here it is again. I only paid $3.50 for this beer in Idaho, I guess the difference is trucking it across country instead of just down to Boise about 500 miles makes the price jump to $7.
with shipping and state taxes it could be a pretty drastic difference!
Hey Don, if you can get a hold of beers from Southern Tier, you should check out their Iniquity Black IPA. It’s another example of a really terrific and complex beer.
I’ll look for it. I have to start my own beer stoire here just to get the great beers you guys talk about! Not kidding!