The Queen's Lunch
Coal Creek TAP

english ipa served on cask in here, really nice beer, these guys are crushing it across a ton of diverse styles, and i was really pleased with this, you just dont see a lot of cask anymore, especially in these parts, and with an authentic english ipa as the liquid, i was in hog heaven! a lightly hazy rusty orange tone to this, rich looking with a lathery white head over an inch high from the engine, a lovely looking pint. aroma and flavor line up well, spicy hops in good proportion to familiar english crystal malts, a maris otter vibe, a honey malt note, pine and juniper and straw to the hops, rustic but well refined, real fresh which is always odd to me in english ipa, they never seem fresh, but this one does. the yeast is right, bready and classic, fermenting this to dry, and its there at the end with the finishing hop bitterness, nice trajectory overall on this one. i get some slightly sticky sappy texture from the hops, a little nod to the west coast types there, but this is pretty squarely english. the cask conditioning is expert as well, so soft in feel, big and expansive and smooth, lively enough, and mellow and drinkable, the perfect format for this style in my opinion, and they have the technical side dialed. very impressive overall here, i loved all the beers i had when i was in, we need more of these in the states!

A:
Pours a hazy gold with a creamy white head that never amounts to much, but stays filmy. Okay retention; amazingly 'English' lacing.

S:
Oat- and cereal-laden. Oats, crystal malt, and a predominately cereal-based character with a wheaty mellowness and some grassy, vaguely ciric dry hop aromas.

T:
Dry and hoppy. Very even tasting with lots of malt cereal flavors, black tea, hard water, and an abrupt dry hoppy finish.

M:
Watery and thin with a light to medium body and just a touch of carbonation.

O:
A nice beer, but nothing to write home about.
This is a decent take on an English-style and both looks and tastes the part. It is not especially amazing in any one way, but is a solid beer on the whole. The body was very thin for my taste (even for a beer of this style). On the whole: a decent beer in its style, but could be a little 'fuller'.
Might have again; nothing to lose by giving it a try.