Smells Like Weed IPA
Dark Horse Brewing Company

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On tap at Ashley's in Westland for a Dark Horse tap takeover. Big and creamy, almost completely opaque copper body with no head, only a mild, beige collar at the edge of the glass. I'll attribute the poor head to the pour and not the beer itself, but it's pretty weak. Despite the sub-par foam, there are a few splotches of lacing left behind on the glass.

The aroma is certainly full of pines and some dank resins... sticky icky, if you catch my drift. Definitely a weed-ish aspect going on, but to be honest, I've have many more IPAs that smell more like *weed* than this one. I guess I was expecting full-force bud, given the name, but it just had a lot of oily, resinous, danky hops - nothing too out of the ordinary, here.

There was quite a bit of caramel malt in the aroma as well, something I'm not particularly fond of, usually because it means it's gonna be a sweet IPA. Thankfully, that doesn't seem like the case for this brew, as the first sip is a loaded hop assault... Pine, ripe grapefruit peel, hemp oil, and a dash of peppery floral notes. Some resin comes along with the pine, but again; "weed" wouldn't be the first thought in my head.

Back-end toffee and caramel-like malt help for balance and luckily avoid jumping the shark into overtly sweet DIPA territory. The balance is actually quite nice, with a hefty, oily and bitter hop attack up front, fading into a soft and mildly sweet finish. Medium bodied, thicker than a standard IPA, but not quite "thick" or chewy. Resinous, lightly sticky mouth feel with a low carbonation boil.

Pretty good, really, just not exactly as the name implies. There's definitely quite a bit of pine, hop oil, and some dank resins, but as I mentioned before, there are many other beers I've had that give off more of a pot vibe than this one, but they don't go around bragging about it in the name. Solid overall, but don't expect liquid ganga exactly.