Larry's Latest IPA
Bell's Brewery - Eccentric Café & General Store

 

I tried this beer off the tapper at Prohibition restaurant in downtown Powell, OH. It was a solid beer. It poured a hazy golden with thin white head that left a little lace. The scent had fruit notes. The taste was nicely balanced and easy to drink. The mouthfeel was lighter in body with good carbonation.

Superb beer from Bell’s. Juicy is not descriptive enough for this one. Hoppy and NE Stylish, but not too much on that end. Very good beer that I see more of in my future.

 

Straddling the fence between what's a strong American IPA and what's an Imperial IPA, Bell's gets back to their hoppy roots with the help of Loral, Citra, Galaxy and Idaho 7 varieties to reestablish a drier, more bitter and highly drinkable kind of hop bomb.

Deep golden but not quite amber, Larry's Latest IPA crowns with a creamy ivory froth that carries all those tropical, citrus, herbal and floral aromas onto the nose. Early sweetness is mild while hitting notes of light honey, faint caramel and the malty dryness of wafer crackers.

But the show quickly turns toward the hops as a tangy and radiant taste of under ripened orange and grapefruit, along with a pep of lemon give the middle palate a decidedly citrusy focus. Suggestions of pineapple, light apricot and passionfruit come from a tropical succulence just before the ale develops a spicy, dry and resinous bitterness of lemongrass, tea, hemp and spruce.

Medium bodied and trending acutely dry, the beer's strong bitterness and fleeting malts exerts its lupulin muscles. Crisp, clean and highly refreshing, Bell's is determined to make IPA bitter again. The dry spruciness of hops resonate in a long finish like vermouth with gin, spicy and sprucy.