Flying Circus Big Hop Ale
Great Waters Brewing

 

Light brown color with a thick tan head showing decent retention.

The nose is mildly hoppy in the aromatic and bittering sense. Not really floral.

Hoppy upon initial attack but it smoothes out to reveal its malty side. The finish is clean and the aftertaste is very mild. The beer doesn't leave as much of an impression as it could. I do admit that I have come to have very high expectations of Great Waters overall and their casks in particular.

Review from notes.

On Cask at the Brewpub: Big orangey browned color with a hefty head of lightly tanned frothy thick foam on top. Keeps a good amount always present. Lots of lacing in big patchy sheeting and broad strings.

Aroma is biscuity dry with a piney resin and slight lemony/grapefruity tug of pithy bitterness which grows intensely as it sits.

Taste is bit strange, mainly due the Golden Promise malts that are used well beyond their means. The balance isn't what I'd like to see out of an IPA. Dry, biscuity flavors abound, crystal and pale maltyness also seems overly evident. Woody, cardboard acsents grow as it sits and don't develop to help the balance. Hop wise, its pretty beefy and dry, but seems hard to get much profile as it fights with the dry malt too much. The cardboardish flavors didn't help either. Kinda leans more like a bigger version of an English ESB or pale than anything. Again, the dryness mixing with the semi high sweet promise malting, fevered hop bite, and cardboardish chalkishness surmount to a weird messy tone of dryness and strange bitterness.

Body is medium and broadly dry with a grainy creamy centered froth of smashed up cereal and warm thick ice cream.

I had a hard time with this one. Something about the flavors did not sit well with me. Balance wasn't there either. A strange IPA at best.