Area 52 Koalagator IPA
Phillips Brewing & Malting Co.

341ml bottle, a single from the recent Phillips Hopbox mixed-pack. This looks like the first one of these animal name mashups that sounds sort of like a real word. And for the record: IPA #7738.

This beer pours a clear, medium copper amber colour, with four flabby fingers of puffy, rocky, and chunky off-white head, which leaves some stellar sudsy chain link fence lace around the glass as it slowly and not so evenly recedes.

It smells of gritty, grainy pale malt, not particularly dank pine resin, muddled tropical fruit, a touch of earthy yeast, some soft flinty notes, and further leafy, herbal, and floral hop bitters. The taste is sharp, kind of musty pine needles, crackery pale malt, the ghost of a caramel sweetness that might once have been, a growing dry-ass chalkiness, fading indistinct citrus rind, and more leafy, floral, and weedy hoppiness.

The bubbles are fairly tight and subsequently prone to probing my gentle palates at will, the body an adequate middleweight, and smooth enough, I suppose, what with that generally hoppy maelstrom going on outside. It finishes dry, bitter, and still a tad flinty.

Yup, another engaging test subject IPA that we can poke and prod, and essentially have our way with. Here, the Vermont IPA thing is evident to a certain degree, to go along with yer usual pine and citrus jokers. Hard to say if this will become a mainstream Phillips offering, because, c'mon, how many different IPAs can they really support?