Monday is here, and it’s time to start another week. Pick of the Weekend is our weekly post where we recap our favorite brews of the week-end past…

It was a big weekend at the Beer of Tomorrow HQ with some friends of the site visiting from the land-of-beer-and-honey, San Diego. Iason brought with him a couple of fresh growlers from Stone Brewing; one of Smoked Porter, and the other of Runiation; as well as a four-pack of the Shmaltz Brewing Bitter Sweet Lenny Rye IPA that we mentioned in our Rye-PA Face-Off. There was also, of course, a fully stocked fridge full of treats to sample including what turned out to be my favorite of the whole weekend: Sierra Nevada’s Hoptimum.

The Bittersweet Lenny was really great, and any-other-weekend it probably would be my pick, but the Hoptimum was something special. The “Whole Cone Imperial IPA” was the final beer in Brewpublic’s list of 50 Must-Try Hoppy Beers, and the beer has a big reputation on Beer Advocate and Reddit/r/beer, so the bar was set pretty high. This beer had been in a BevMo warehouse for too long, and it was probably past it’s prime yet still it did not disappoint. With Hoptimum Sierra Nevada is all about  cramming as much hop flavor and aroma into a bottle as they can, and the result is layer after layer of hops, a restrained malty backbone to support the green-stuff, and a finish that I think I can still taste.

If you consider your self a hop-head, and/or a fan of Sierra Nevada’s beer, do yourself a favor and track some of this down (they had a half-dozen cases at the West Hollywood BevMo store as of Saturday morning)! I doubt you will be disappointed.