IPA
Tugboat Brewing Company

This was the first brewpub I visited on my trip to Porland last October, but I forgot to submit the rating. The smell is very distincly citrus, almost lemon drop. The appearance was cloudy orange, almost like a wheat beer, but was a little hard to tell since it's so damn dark in this place. Decent head and lacing. I didn't think this was too bitter. However, I don't think I could drink this for hours, even though I could hang out here for hours.

The Tugboat is a great place, but thus far I have been unimpressed with their beer. Like the others I have tried this one was unusually cloudy and devoid of head. It had a floral aroma which seemed ot be warring with a rather acidic twang. Again, like other Tugboat brews, this one had a rather floury taste and feel to it (as if someone had mixed a little flour into the beer making it cloudy, dry and mottled on the tongue). Its upside was a pleasant floral hoppiness which also seems to be a Tugboat staple and a pleasant citric sharpness.

Tugboat’s IPA has the smell of fermented lemon rinds. It is fiercely citric and in my view, vastly too bitter for casual appreciation. There is also a flash of apricot in the flavor as well as some sort of tropic fruit – I want to say guava. It is densely clouded orange-gray and comes served with good lace at a welcome cellar temperature.

I found the bitterness of this ale simply too brazen and overstated. Its hop flavor is obscured by a biting bitter edge making for a beer whose taste is compressed, whose texture is astringent, and that is ultimately difficult to cozy up to.