It’s Monday, so it was back to work. I had a busy morning filled with meetings and the rest of the day was fairly productive. I’m finishing up a few projects before being assigned to a new team the first week in May as part of the job transition I’ve been going through the last several months. My wife works the same place I do, and found out about her area’s job transitions today. It’s been a pretty stressful time here lately… and the weather doesn’t help. We had another few inches of snow on the ground when we woke up today, and it seems like winter will never end. The good news is that it’s supposed to get up in the 70’s later this week. My son’s soccer games and practices have been cancelled the last few weeks due to rain and snow. However, that makes this weekend the official start of both his soccer and baseball seasons, so we’ll be pretty busy the next few months. As for the beer, this is another one my friend Joe from Atlanta brought me this fall when we met up in Nashville. It’s from a brewery in Woodstock, GA. The cans says, “A fresh hop flavor with notes of bright citrus and dry, crisp finish designed for moments of refuge.”
Location: Poured into a goblet style pint glass from the can at my home in Bloomington, IL.
Numbers: 5.5% ABV, ~140 Calories
Appearance & Aroma: It’s amber-dark orange in color and is fairly hazy, it has a decent sized head on it with a pretty soapy texture that left some nice lacing on the glass. It has a lightly citrusy aroma with some light earthiness.
Taste & Feel: The body is light-medium and the mouthfeel is a bit creamy. The flavor up front is a citrusy hop flavor and bitterness with some hints of earthy spiciness. The bitterness backs off a bit in the middle, leaving some of the citrusy-earthy-spicy hop juiciness. The bitterness kicks back in for the finish with all three hop flavors and bitterness. The hop juiciness and bitterness lasts for a little bit in the finish.
Food Pairing: I had this with a Super Pretzel, and it was great for knocking down the hoppiness between sips. I think this would probably pair nicely with something like a cheese pizza or Mexican food, as the hop flavors and bitterness would complement the cheeses nicely.
Overall Impression: This beer had an interesting mix of hop flavors that seemed to change a little bit with every sip. At first it was citrusy, and then in the next sip it would be more spicy-earthy. I liked how it balanced hop flavors and bitterness and each sip went back and forth. At times, one of the hop flavors would stand out, and it was very good, and other times, they mixed together creating a bit of muddiness. Overall it was a decent IPA on the lower end of the ABV spectrum.
My Rating: 
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