OK, enough with the ice cream themed beers for the time being. Sorry if you were digging those, but I need something more my style to get back to my roots tonight. I love the IPA style more than any other style of beer. I'd tag and link some other past blog posts, but they are all over the place. Feel free to check out other posts from past IPA reviews if you're interested.
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| The Roots...in the background...get it? |
After a day where I got a ton of stuff done, including getting Christmas cards ready to mail out, followed by an impromptu dinner with friends at a local brewpub, Rusty Rail in Mifflinburg, it was time to sit down and collect my thoughts and pour out some creative juices by reviewing an IPA. The sampler I got there tonight was decent, where I got a Spruce Session IPA, a Belgian Pumpkin Ale, and a Mixed Berry Stout, which was my favorite of the lot.
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| Right...blog isn't about my sampler...back to the beer |
With craft beer springing up all over the place lately (see last paragraph for an example), the Lehigh Valley in Pennsylvania is where we go to tonight. One of these days I need to make a trip to the SE part of the state to drop by quite a few breweries/brewpubs/tasting rooms because there are some gems in that area. Fegley's Brew Works, Tire Hands, Saucony Creek, just to name 3 I know of in that area are places I'd like to get to again, or for the first time.
For Day 3, from Hijinx Brewing Company in Allentown is their 8% IPA, which should be pretty darn close to bordering on an Imperial IPA, Hop Havoc. According to the can, we have "a hoppy American IPA with notes of grapefruit, stone fruits and melon. Not your everyday IPA. The inviting grapefruit aromas lead to a subtle hint of fresh peach and are balanced by a slight malt sweetness and moderate bitterness."
The beer poured a hazy golden color with a thin rim of an off-white head. The aroma was that of an earthy and grapefruit hop combo. Sticky, sweet caramel malts dominated the backbone of this beer along with a moderate bitterness throughout the sip that lingered for quite a while. I don't get the melon here, but I do get a slight taste of peach that is masked by the bitterness of the hops (if you're thinking, mmm, peaches and you're not a hop fan, don't be tempted).
All in all, it was worth a try, but I personally enjoy a hoppy brew. This was more malty than hoppy for me, and I'm not a fan of most grapefruity hoppy beers. Sweet is OK, but as for the hops here, I didn't get what I expected.
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| not sure if that was proper English or not...there are squiggly red lines all over that last paragraph... |
I have another beer from these guys that I'm looking forward to later this month and I'll definitely review it here. As it stands for now, I'll give this a satisfactory score of a 3.5 out of 5.
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