Devotion is a limited-edition brew from The Lost Abbey, one of the ones I received in the PR care package a couple of weeks ago. It’s a blonde Belgian abbey-style ale, served up in a 750ml corked bottle, and is one of their lower-strength beers at 6.25% alcohol by volume.

It’s the first beer from The Lost Abbey that I’ve had, actually. I’ve had some of the Pizza Port/Port Brewing beers (from Solana Beach), which are the same brewer, sort of. The bottle is the large 750ml "Belgian style" with champagne cork and wire cage, with a very nice looking label. (All of The Lost Abbey’s bottles look very cool.)

Appearance: Pale gold orange, very slight haze, and a big white head formed when I poured. A bit of a pink tinge to the beer, maybe, also?

Smell: Floral and slightly herbal, slight hint of spiciness. Deeper aromas are resinous hops; perhaps a hint of Belgian candy sugar but the hops really dominate the nose, for me.

Taste: Definitely the hops taking the forefront—resiny and a little pitchy, even. Juniper and pine, sticky-spicy like that. It’s not overpowering in the Northwest style (or even in the seemingly-typical San Diego style I noticed of other beers while down there), though it is very hoppy and bitter—oily in hops, almost. But not a kick in the face with them. Malt is simply there as a foundation for the hop character, it seems: very neutral.

Mouthfeel: Firm body but (again) it’s the hops that are noticeable—almost oily and coating the mouth. You almost want to think it’s sticky from resin.

Overall: Don’t let my gushing about hop bitterness lead you astray, this is a well-crafted beer.

On BeerAdvocate, only 8 reviews so far don’t give an overall score, but the average is 4.04 out of 5, all reviews approving. On RateBeer, it scores 3.62 out of 5 and is in their 86th percentile.