Collective Project: IPA No. 9
Collective Arts Brewing

 

 

 

Hazy school bus yellow, moderate head, good lace for most of the journey. Subdued nose, a little bit of booziness under the hops. Grainy malt up front. Tropical fruit to taste with some honey or melon finishing things up. Pretty soft drinking for an IPA. Solidly hoppy, but not aggressively so. Citra really attenuated by Azacca, I think. Slightly watery mouthfeel.

473ml can - a weird find, but given the choices within walking distance at the moment, I'll take it. The label imagery may be just a grizzly bear, er, bear-hugging a retro fridge, but it's almost like it's happening in front of a lazy map of France, or something. Anyways.

This beer pours a murky, wan golden straw colour, with a teeming tower of puffy, rocky, and loosely bubbly off-white head, which leaves some stellar flock of seagulls pattern lace around the glass as it lazily abates.

It smells of gritty and grainy cereal malt, some muddled domestic citrus rind, a further exotic fruitiness, some damp minerality, and more leafy, weedy, and piney green hoppiness. The taste is grainy and crackery pale malt, some orange, red grapefruit, and lemon citrus flesh, more pineapple and kumquat tropical fruity notes, a stoney flintiness, and understated leafy, piney, and musky floral hop bitters.

The carbonation is adequate in its palate-bonding frothiness, the body a decent medium weight, and generally smooth, with a wee airy creaminess edging its way in as things warm up a tad around here. It finishes trending dry, but not piercingly so, as one might be imagining.

Overall - this appears to be yet another standing triple from this brewery that always seems to have its finger on the pulse of the brewing world. While that measurement may have been from almost a year ago, it still remains valid, IMHO.

Tasted in a crystal champagne flute from a one pint can on January 2, 2020. The newest in their IPA series is a double dry-hopped brut IPA . Crisp, bubbly and utterly bursting full of fresh Azacca and Citra hops. The aroma and flavor of bright citrus and mango come from the large 16g/hL dry hopping.

IPA No. 9 pours a copper color, with a long lasting, lacing head. Nice big dry hoppy aroma. Flavor is very dry, juicy, with lots of sticky hop notes. Great full body, great dry feel. Overall, a very nice, strong, and very dry, brut IPA.

L: Hazy amber color, two finger white head, messy lacing, light carbonation.

S: Tropical fruits, hops.

T: Tropical fruits, hops, sweet, malty.

F: Medium bodied, nicely flavored.

O: A good IPA but definitely NOT a brut IPA.

 

I am on a Collective Arts spree today as I discovered a number of their CANs in my backlog awaiting inclusion in The CANQuest (tm). As an artistic beer drinker, I really dig the shrink-wrapped labels, although I gotta say that they hoodwinked me at one point. One release may have multiple labels (!) & since I am not a CAN collector, I really have no interest in all of the variations. My ignorance led me to buy three (3) of the same one! 8=( As if the backlog were not deep enough! 8=(

From the CAN: "Brut India Pale Ale brewed with Azacca & Citra hops"; "Limited Release"; "Unfiltered Keep Cold"; "Art: Tara Hardy, Montreal, QC, CANada".

My CAN depicted an angry, rampant bear attacking a reefer festooned with magnets! It could have been mine, except that mine is a side-by side, while this one was an over-under.

The Crack! revealed yet another brimful craft CAN that, upon the vent being opened, spritzed me across the fingertips. I allowed it some calming time before moving on to a slow, gentle C-Line Glug. After all, it was a Brut IPA … I was moderately successful in my efforts in that it turned out to be an oh-so-slightly hazy Straw-Yellow (SRM = > 2, < 4), but it also formed nearly three fingers of dense, foamy, rocky, bone-white head with excellent retention. Nose was very interesting in that I really got a strong sense of citrus fruit hoppiness, but not so much tropical fruits. Citra > Azacca? Mouthfeel was medium, but really soft & slick on the tongue. Mmm. The taste was very fruity, but the CANbination of the two hops varieties had melded to create a taste like Lemondrop hops! 8=O I was VERY pleasantly surprised by this. I LOVE Lemondrop hops but they are totes underutilized & to get a taste like this was quite unexpected. The other CANsideration here was its extreme dryness. Phew! Bone dry! To the point that I was reaching for my asthma inhaler. Phew! It slowly blossomed out of lemon & into grapefruit & tropical, but the lemon lingered, especially in my sinus cavity since each inhalation brought it back. Phew! Finish was super dry & I would have it no other way. YMMV.

 

 

 

Pours pale gold slightly misty - frothy head dissipates rather quickly leaving a slight ring. Aroma - pungent almost tar like pine - carries into the flavour which adds citrus and tropical fruits.

 

 

 

 

Pours blond with a frenetic storm of carbonation bubbles. The chunky, everlasting head coats the glass in lace chunks. Peach, apricot, berry hops and light pale malts in the nose. The taste reminds me of canned peaches with syrup, with pineapple and mango in toe. Light maltiness in the back. The mouthfeel is medium to light bodied with medium carbonation. Medium bitterness and some residual maltiness in the finish.

This is a nice Brut IPA. Hoppy and complex but not as dry as I expected. Worth a try.