IPA

 

Stone Brewing of Escondido California brews so many different IPA and this Tangerine Express IPA, 6.7% ABV follow an IPA trend of citrus/tropical forward IPAs and it’s packed with whole tangerines and pineapples. Tangerine Express pours yellow with a slightly hazy appearance and a two finger white steady fading head that gives off citrus aromas of tangerine and pineapple bitter notes with a flavor or citrus tangerine, tropical pineapple hitting your tongue with a hoppy bitterness washing over to the back of the tongue with a fruity bitter finish and semi bittersweet aftertaste that linger for just moment all with a medium mouthfeel. Stone Brewing has made a good tasty IPA with Tangerine Express IPA it’s an A. All of the flavors of Tangerine Express IPA blend well to make for a good refreshing IPA that is full of good citrus/tropical fruit flavors with the right amount of bitter hoppiness. Tangerine Express IPA is a beer that I recommend. Cheers! Please enjoy responsibly!      

 

 

Another IPA here and this Stone Brewing Delicious IPA, 7.7% ABV is brewed with Lemondrop and El Dorado Hop in Escondido California. Delicious IPA pours a clear golden yellow color with an almost two finger white head with a slight/faint lemon aroma wafting to your nose with some bitterness that takes you into a faint lemon taste with a bit of citrus flavor in the middle and a bitter bite on the back of the mouth with more alcoholic bitter finish, and a light lemon aftertaste with a thin to almost medium mouthfeel  Overall the flavor of Delicious IPA is thin with more of an alcoholic flavor as it warms. I give Stone Brewing Delicious IPA a C-. Wasn’t what I call so delicious as the label might suggest, but wasn’t terrible. I wouldn’t have this beer again soon as I don’t recommend this Stone Brewing Delicious IPA. Cheers! Please enjoy responsibly!      

Hazy unfiltered IPAs are quite popular with many craft breweries brewing them and Sierra Nevada Brewing Co. Hazy Little Thing IPA, 6.7% ABV is one IPA that is following the popular trend. Hazy Little Thing IPA pours a hazy yellow with a two finger white fizzy head that gives you orange juice aromas with some bitter notes and flavor of bitter orange juice and a little passion fruit towards the back of the tongue with a juicy bitter finish and a fruit juicy aftertaste with a slight bitterness all with a light mouthfeel. Hazy Little Thing IPA drinks very easy, especially with an ABV of 6.7%. Hazy Little Thing IPA is a great tasting beer that is well deserving of an A+ and a beer that I highly recommend. Cheers! Please enjoy responsibly!   

This local beer, The Unknown Brewing Co. Scratch N Sniff India Pale Ale, 4.7% ABV which is brewed here locally in Charlotte North Carolina is riding the wave of popularity with the IPA, sounds like it was named after those stickers you got as a child that you thought was cool.  Scratch N Sniff India Pale Ale pours a hazy light orange color with a two finger head that does fade rather quickly into itself giving off an aroma of big bitter grapefruit with some earthy notes that give you a juicy grapefruit bitterness with some other faint citrus notes that have a little earthy piney quality to them with a juicy bitter finish and a nice semi-sweet citrus bitter aftertaste with a light mouthfeel. The Unknown Brewing Co. Scratch N Sniff India Pale Ale is an easy drinking IPA that is good A+ good and one that I highly recommend trying. It has a fruity quality to it that is juicy and quite refreshing and none too strong on the alcohol. Scratch N Sniff India Pale Ale is tasty! Cheers! Please Enjoy Responsibly!     

Sycamore Brewing First Clouds India Pale Ale, 7.9% brewed locally in Charlotte, North Carolina is brewed with Moutree and Centennial hops and pours an orange color that is has a little yellow hue to it with a four finger white billowy head giving off a slight sour tropical fruit note with some bitter earthy notes that give you taste flavors earthy tropical fruit that tastes like the fruits are starting to go bad with a bitter piney earthy note with a hint of sourness with a bitter finish that is a bit awful with some slight yet faint spiced notes and an aftertaste of off fruit flavors and bitter sour notes with a light mouthfeel. I am not a fan of this or Sycamore as a whole so I give this a D-. It was finishable which I did but left me feeling like made a bad decision. I didn’t get any good tropical fruit flavors on this, and yes I like that in an IPA, but I did get bad tasting fruit. So I don’t recommend Sycamore Brewing First Clouds India Pale Ale. Cheers! please enjoy responsibly!   

Holy City Brewing (Charleston, South Carolina), Paradise Session India Pale Ale, 4.7% ABV is brewed with Citra and Mosaic hops and to celebrate the prevention of drilling of the South Carolina Coast and support The Coastal Conservation League. Paradise pours a hazy yellow color with a thin two finger white head that fades into itself in a rapid manner giving off aromas of tropical sweet fruits with a nice nostril smack of bitterness with a little floral aroma that leads you to the sip of tropical fruit flavors with a nice serge of bitter floral notes that are semi-sweet that all come together to a bitter tropical finish that is a bit smooth and an aftertaste of bitter tropical fruit and floral notes with a thin dry like mouthfeel. Overall Paradise Session India Pale Ale wasn’t bad but I found the flavor to be just a tiny bit over what I would call a sessionable flavor and that gives it a C+. I mean I could probably drink three and then I would be tired of the flavor of this beer. But the flavor is spot on for a more tropical IPA and I would recommend it to anyone especially in the summertime. Cheers! Please enjoy responsibly!     

This is a post from April 4th, 2016.

It is always great to have a beer at the source. Recently I visited Seattle and the Pike Brewery. I really enjoyed their beers. They are great. When I got back I thought to try some more of their beers and review them. So my father picked up this, The Pike Seattle’s Famous Space Needle Golden IPA, 6.5% ABV with IBU of 58. Space Needle doesn’t pour a golden color it pours more like a traditional IPA, a little murky orange color with a huge tower of bright fluffy white head that never seems to fade away. The aroma is with malts and earthy notes with hints of slight grassy features. The taste is slightly bitter up front with a more malted present in the middle and becomes a little more bitter on the end. This some similar in flavor to an English IPA with it malt profile. The mouthfeel is light to a slight medium and has a nice malted but bitter finish. The aftertaste is nice juicy touches of nice malted flavors and hints of an earthy note. Overall this was good but not what I was expecting, by still a good beer. So I say that The Pike Seattle’s Famous Space Needle Golden IPA is a B. I was going into this beer thinking it was going to be more lager or pilsner tasting that malty bitter IPA. Still, I thought it was good and yes I would have this again, and you should try it too. The fact that it read Golden IPA on the label and it did not taste like a golden beer was not good in my book but the flavor that I did taste was great. I really think that The Pike does a great job with their beer; I mean they have been doing since 1989. Cheers! Please enjoy responsibly!

Only The second Nebraska Brewing beer I’ve had, this is IPA 6.9% ABV with 72 IBUs. Nebraska brewing has some interesting can pop tops, the entire top of the can comes off when you open it sort of turning the can into a drinking glass or vessel. This a west coast inspired IPA using Citra Hops and pours an orange color with a one and a half fingers of white that fizzles into a nice ring giving off citrus fruit aromas with resiny pine notes with some bitterness that draw you into flavors of nice citrus fruits like oranges and grapefruit with a piney resin bitterness with a slight bitter citrusy finish and a slight bitter piney citrus aftertaste with a medium mouthfeel. Being the second Nebraska Brewing beer, gimmick aside, I must say their beers are good, this one is a B, and was most enjoyable without being overly bitter and hoppy.  I do recommend Nebraska Brewing Company IPA. This IPA is a good one and one I will come back too real soon. It ticks all the right boxes on a what makes a good IPA. Cheers! Please enjoy responsibly!  

Here we have a beer from one of the earliest craft beer breweries in the US, Sierra Nevada, in Chico California, and soon to have a brewery here in the mountains of North Carolina. This is the winter/Christmas seasonal Celebration, 6.8%ABV. This is fresh hop ale, so that is using fresh hop not dries pellets of hops like in some IPA’s. This is also known as a wet hop. This ale was created in the winter of 1981 and always has the year on the neck label. Sierra Nevada uses whole-cone American hops in this fresh IPA. This is my first time having this, but my second Sierra Nevada beer. Celebration pours a nice rich amber color with a light tan head five-finger head that just sticks around forever and makes such massive lacing around the glass. I did find some light coming through the glass with a small amount of carbonation there. The aroma of Celebration is big pine needles with a big citrus fruit like grapefruit, orange, and some pineapple. There are orange and grapefruit juice. This just has that classic west coast fresh IPA aroma to it. This is just a very nice smelling IPA. The taste on Celebration is amazing, with a big grapefruit hit at first with a nice orangey/orange juice flavor right behind that. There is a little pine needle taste there too, but it’s a bit faint. Yes, there is hop bitterness thereto, but it’s more of a citrusy and slightly less hop plant-like. The finish on this is clean a bit fruity and slightly hoppy but does finish nicely. The aftertaste doesn’t linger too much just enough to be enjoyable with a piney pineapple, big grapefruit, and a little orange. Celebration has a great balance between piney and citrus hop aromas and flavors, and it wowed me. So this is getting an A from me. This is a good example of a classic fresh hop ale/IPA. Sure it isn’t what you expect from a winter beer, but hey it’s something different for the winter season and it is great. Yeah, it could have been a little more on the fruit or hop flavors to make it an A+, but not a whole lot could be done. This is a near perfect beer. I love this and highly recommend this! So go out and get it before it is gone. Cheers! Please enjoy responsibly!