Mango IPA
Ninkasi Brewing Company

On tap at Growler Garage, South Burlington, VT. This was poured into a tulip. The appearance was a glazed to burnt orange color with a bar pour’s kind of slim white head. Light lacing speckles and slides into the beer. The smell starts off with a slim light mango but really blends into a big burst of bitter grapefruit rind. Subtle grassiness blends to balance underneath. The taste was moderately balanced between the subtleness of the grapefruit and the mango, sweet to bitter, but not purely bittersweet, good. Lingering grapefruit aftertaste runs into the finish. On the palate, this one sat about a light to medium on the body with a nice feel about it. IPA bitter harshness sets the course on my tongue as it should. Overall, its a really nice AIPA that I would have again.

 

On tap, 16oz. shaker pint.

L = Golden, a little bit of orange tint with a slight haze. Foamy white head that settles, leaving a ring around the glass. Foam sticks to the side of the glass as it is emptied.

S = The mango aroma is there, but subdued, get a bit of citrus and tropical hops as well. A slight "fermented" fruit aroma present as well (rotting fruit).

T = Bitter hops, some mango fruit flavor, bit of fermented mango flavor.

F = Medium bodied with moderate carbonation.

O = I can't get fully behind this. The base IPA seems "ok", I don't think the mango improved anything, may have actually made things worse.

 

 

 

 

12oz glass at Beer Revolution in Edmonton Oliver - mango seems to be the fruit of the year, 2015 edition, for American craft brewers, doncha think?

This beer appears a slightly hazy, medium golden apricot amber colour, with one stout finger of puffy, foamy, and somewhat creamy ecru head, which leaves some rather pleasant tiered ribbon lace around the glass as things gently subside.

It smells of musty orange, grapefruit, and I suppose mango fruity flesh, grainy caramel malt, leafy, piney, and earthy green hop notes, and a hovering estery booziness. The taste is more big warm climate fruitiness - lemon, lime, red grapefruit, and yeah, muddled mango - grainy and lightly biscuity caramel malt, and some further leafy, weedy, and kind of herbal hoppiness.

The carbonation is quite solid in its stern and supportive frothiness, the body a decent middleweight for the base style, and mostly smooth, not much of that fruitiness making any sort of fuss here. It finishes trending dry, the bitterness of the hops coming out of its shell.

Everything here comes across as just less than 'good', because, even if the base IPA is beyond reproach, the general lack of the titular guest fruit in either the aroma or the flavour is enough to proffer a hearty What the Fuck? Take that as you will.