It has been a very busy Sunday morning, going to church, fertilizing the yard and installing a cat door. So now it’s time to have a beer and watch some March Madness NCAA basketball. I picked up this beer a couple weeks ago when I was in Louisville, KY doing the Bourbon Trail. I picked up a mixed six pack of local IPAs. So I know I need to drink them while they are still relatively fresh.
Location: Poured into a TEKU pint glass at my home in Bloomington, IL.
Numbers: 7% ABV, ~220 Calories
Ingredients: 2-Row, Caramel, Honey Malt, Flaked Barley malts, hops: Cascade, Centennial, Citra, Columbus and West Sixth House Ale yeast.
Appearance & Aroma: It’s amber or burnt orange in color and fairly hazy. It had a thick, creamy, cream-colored head that left some really nice lacing as it fell to a thin layer over the top. It has a nice piney and slightly earthy hop aroma.
Taste & Feel: The body is medium and the mouthfeel is a bit crisp from the hops. Up front it’s mostly a citrusy-piney hop flavor and bitterness. The piney resinous bitterness picks up in the middle and grows throughout the finish, giving it a fairly piney-earthy bitter finish. The earthy-piney bitterness is what lasts for a minute or two in the aftertaste.
Food Pairing: The piney-earthy bitterness went great with my hot wings but would also go great with a cheeseburger or cheesy pizza.
Overall Impression: I liked the hop flavors and bitterness, and thought it was a solid IPA. I felt like this beer tilted toward pulling the bitterness out of the hops, and I prefer it when the hop flavors are able to match up to the bitterness. Overall, I thought this was a decent IPA, but in the midst of a ton of different IPAs, I don’t know that I could pick this one out from the pack.
My Rating: 
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