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It’s been a lazy Saturday recovering from a late night last night. My son’s birthday was this week, and he had a couple friends over last night to spend the night. I finally went to bed about 2 AM after trying to get them to bed. I’m buying time before the Missouri – Tennessee football game tonight, so I decided to crack open this growler my sister brought me. She was down in Knoxville (home of the University of Tennessee) a couple weeks ago to visit a friend and picked up some beers for me. My friend Joe went to the game and posted pictures from this brewery last night, so I decided to open this one to be in Knoxville in spirit.
Location: Poured from the growler into a large Sam Adams Perfect Pint glass at my home in Bloomington, IL.
Appearance & Aroma: It’s golden-orange in color and somewhat hazy. It has a decent, bright white head that fell to just a thin layer across the top after a couple of minutes. The aroma is an earthy-grassy hop smell with some spicy grapefruit aromas.
Taste & Feel: The body is medium and the mouthfeel is fairly crisp. There’s a bit of maltiness and hop bitterness detectable behind the crispness up front. Out of that, a grapefruit and grassy hop flavor and bitterness emerges and becomes even more bitter in the finish. There’s a little bit of caramel maltiness behind the big grassy-grapefruit bitterness, with some spiciness, in the finish. The bitterness slowly fades after a minute or so in the aftertaste.
Food Pairing: This beer has a good amount of grassy and grapefruit. Therefore, I’d pair it with a hearty meal like a burger or a steak.
Overall Impression: I like to try the IPA from a brewery to get a sense of how they do as a brewery. I appreciated the bit of maltiness in the background throughout, as well as the mix of hop flavors. There was a good amount of complexity to the hops, with some grassiness, spiciness, and mostly grapefruit flavors. I only wish it wasn’t as crisp as it was, so that the flavors up front were more detectable. Overall, it was a pretty good IPA, and I look forward to trying more of their beers.
My Rating: 
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