Category 56
10 Barrel Brewing Co.

a clear and sort of classic west coast ipa here, named after its style judging number, and apparently a rotating recipe, although i have only ever seen or had it this once. in this iteration thats on tap at the boise location right now, we have a golden to brassy brew with nice clarity and an inch of white head. the nose is a little generic to me in terms of hop profile, which was true of a lot of their hoppy beers in this latest session i had there, as bitter as it is flavorful, and fuller bodied from the malt but without much residual sugar or anything. im not going to call the taste boring, because its balanced and good, well executed and fine quality and all that, its just uninteresting to me. some bitter citrus late, a baked or cooked thing going on with the grain, sort of a breakfast cereal profile to it, long linger on the swallow, somehow a lot of their beers have felt heavy to me lately, maybe some product of their house ale yeast, i dont know, but this is substantial too, and feels somewhat bigger than it really is. a good ipa for interesting food, as its flavorful in a lot of ways, but not distracting or intriguing from a hop sense, so just kind of a drinker, but bold enough to work with spicy food, i dug it with their clams in here, which are excellent. pretty to style, which i guess the name suggests is the point.

Draft at Boise Brewpub. Amber, lively carbonation, thick fluffy head. Beautiful (like my server). Aroma is mildly sweet, minor hop notes. Taste comes on...mild. Lots of things swimming just beneath the surface, hops, malts. Nothing in the driver's seat, though. Just incredibly smooth. And the a small lingering bite at the tail (or is that a remnant of the previous DIPA?)