Super Jupiter Grapefruit ISA
Howe Sound Inn & Brewing Company

This is a dandy ISA. I'm not a huge fan of the style - I prefer a bit more heat and hooch, but this fits the bill. It was a great choice to help me make it through the final Tragically Hip concert.

 

 

 

 

 

 

On tap at Tap and Barrel, Vancouver.
Hazy amber with white film. 3.75
Blonde toffee and spritzy citrus rind on the nose. 3.75
Forest honey, then floral, orange rind, and slight resin hops. 3.75
Peppery finish and tingly linger.
Lt-med, chewy, slight cling. 3.75

Juicy, with twinkles of bright citrus. They’re lost, though, under too much pine and malt. And for having actual grapefruit, I’ve gotten more of it from pure Citra beers. Good body for 4.5%, at the expense of IBUs. MOR, in the end. 3.75

 

 

 

 

1L swing-top capped bottle, as ever was for this brewery - following in the footsteps of many of their BC brewing brethren, this is the scaled-back version of their Grapefruit IPA.

This beer pours a slightly hazy, medium copper amber hue, with a strange vortex of swirling evanescence, and two chubby fingers of puffy, rocky, and densely foamy ecru head, which leaves some chunky layered cloud lace around the glass as it slowly melts away.

It smells of peppy pine needles, white grapefruit rind and flesh, crackery caramel malt, a further mixed tropical fruitiness, a subtle mint-like spiciness, and some late-evolving floral notes. The taste is bready, grainy caramel malt, somewhat dank pine resin, ripe whole grapefruit (if one actually ate it that way), a growing doughy yeastiness, more muddled tropical fruit notes, a hard water flintiness, and waning floral, leafy green hops.

The carbonation is fairly active, in its loosely-held, ranging frothiness, the body a decent medium weight, and generally smooth, the hops more respectful than timid, I'd say. It finishes off-dry, just, as the various fruit esters, led by the increasingly bitter grapefruit push the malt into the proverbial shrinking corner.

As far as this wanky sub-style of the IPA goes, Super Jupiter ISA is hardly out of this world, but does well to shore up the typical failings. Sure, the ABV is low, and thus not at all noticeable, but Howe Sound has kept the sturdy malt body to go along with all that hoppiness, not to mention its older brother's (ancestor's?) agreeable grapefruit adjunct. Worth checking out, as a warmer weather patio sessioner, fo sho.

Cloudy golden amber, two fingers of off-white head, sticky lacing. Smells of grapefruit, as promised. Grapefruit and pine. Quite bitter, although the label says 45 IBUs.