Profiled by Ken Carman
Two moments of pure honesty: I had this beer a while ago so I can’t be as specific as I should be. The other is I was judging it as I practiced to up my BJCP tasting score. I should have judged it lower since I judged it as if it had been entered as a regular IPA. But, dagnab it, it’s so flabupin good!
Yeah, I just made up a word. And it was fun doing it. Kind of like Fred Karm’s brewers kind of made up their own spin off of IPA. That’s a new thing at the BJCP: the just expanded the IPA category because there are so many versions. I hope this eventually becomes one.
What would have made it score lower? Well, it looked like murky lemonade crossed with a little orange juice: an orange-ish yellow, and no light shined through. There was a low bitter for an IPA and the fruitiness was yeast driven as well as hop, which I’m sure IPA purists would do a lot of the verbal version of barfing about.
The nose was about the same as the taste with hints of lemon, orange, peach. The taste and mouth feel: almost no bitter. The mouth feel was heavier than it actually was with suspended yeast hanging around in the finish/aftertaste because they had misbehaved during purist IPA school. I’m sure some of the biggie purists would want it expelled. It finished somewhat sweet.
Malt was no more than a background orchestra of hard to discern pale: still it supported it well. Balance well towards the fruit.
You know what? The purists can have their perfect IPAs. I like them too. But this is unique, and while ‘dank’ doth not apply, except the slightest horsey sense via, I would a assume, a hint of that side to brett, I also assume either this specific yeast is fruit dominate, or it has been fermented twice.
The head was an off white and pillow: didn’t last long, small bubble mostly.
So many IPAs these days do bitter and little more than bitter. They even do bitter quite well. But hops have flavor, guldern it, I want to taste them too, at least more than a little! Please brew this again. I could drink more than a pint or two.
No score on Rate Beer. 4.23 BA.
I can’t give it a super high score because I’m not sure what style they were shooting for, but I did score it well with a…
4.2
Welcome to the PGA beer rating system: one beer “Don’t bother.” Two: Eh, if someone gives it to you, drink. Three: very good, go ahead and seek it out, but be aware there is at least one problem. Four: seek it out. Five: pretty much “perfecto.”
______________________________Beer HERE
___________________________________________________________________