Name: 1000 IBU
Style: Imperial India Pale ALe
Brewery: Mikkeller website
Country: København, Denmark
Region: This was Brewed & Bottled by Mikkeller at De Proef Brouwerij in Lochristi-Hijfte, Belgium
ABV: 9.6% Abv
How served: 375ml wrapped, caged and corked bottle poured into an Oerbier glass.
My Overall Opinion: Very Good 
I paired this beer with: Mediterranean style sardines. This beer and sardines were just perfect… for me.
Tasted on: Tuesday June 1st, 2010.
Note: Cork is dated with a best by date of 14-01-12.
This bottle was wrapped with a green paper which is not only decorative, but also helps keep this beer from “skunking” as is prone to happening to beer stored in green glass bottles.
This beer poured with a wonderful thick head. The nose was just about all hops, nice fresh and citrusy. I was expecting a fairly bitter to an over the top bitter experience given the name 1000 IBU, but boy was I pleasantly surprised. I was first greeted with the sweetness of the malt and then picked up some piney and citrusy hops. Very very balanced throughout the drinking experience between the malt and hops, which made this a very crisp and refreshing beer. In spite of the name 1000 IBU, this beer should be very enjoyable for those who say they do not like “hoppy” beers & should be just as enjoyable for the “hopheads.
From their website: At the end of February Mikkelers IBU 1000 will be available in Denmark and abroad/domestically as well as internationally. Even though this beer has been called the hoppiest in the world numerous times and even though it was debated vigorously on beer blogs prior to its release date around the world, the story about the IBU 1000 cannot be told properly without the information that Mikkellers intention was never solely to brew a beer with an extremely high IBU. The purpose of this project was to brew a beer with an impressive IBU that at the same time was relatively easy to drink. And that is exactly what Mikkeller has done with this beer.
Because – believe it or not – this beer is actually very well balanced. Residual sweetness contrasts nicely with the bitterness from hop and the result is a beer, that is much easier to drink than what you would assume.
The name IBU 1000 refers to the theoretical IBU of this beer. There are physical limits to how much bitterness beer can soak up. For the benefit of those especially interested in the process of brewing we can tell you that 6½ kilogram of alpha-acid extract was used og 10 kilograms of simcoe-pellets per 1000 liters beer! This means that ”easy to drink” is only for the hardcore hopheads….
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