WinterGlow
Stanley Park Brewing

 

330ml bottle cooled for a few hours
The beer has very good flavour notes and smells much better than any of the major beers. First ipa ever had and has a very distinct feel and aroma to it the second you open the bottle. Highly recommend getting your hands on some before it's gone for the season.

 

330ml bottle, their current 'Seasonale', that being winter, which I'm not really in the position to argue about right now. Made with mandarin oranges and 'citrus' hops.

This beer pours a kind of hazy, medium copper amber colour, with two fingers of puffy, loosely foamy, and bubbly off-white head, which leaves some eroding limestone cliff lace around the glass as it evenly sinks away.

It smells of pungent Christmas orange flesh, gritty and grainy pale malt, some hard water flintiness, further mixed citrus notes, and some tame leafy, weedy, and piney green hop bitters. The taste is nicely rounded citrus (mandarins, sure, but some other generic fruitiness abounds as well), grainy and crackery pale malt, a lesser biscuity caramel sweetness, wet stone paths after the rain (or maybe melting snow), a very minor yeastiness, and a plain leafy, piney, and herbal concurrent verdant hoppiness. No suggestion of the elevated ABV, in the least.

The carbonation is standard in its basic cable frothiness, the body a decent middleweight, and mostly smooth, but those citrus and friends hoppy notes, ya know they're gonna exact a toll here, and they sort of do. It finishes off-dry, the citrus pulling back on the reins a wee bit and allowing some of the cereal malt to shine in its dazed lingering state.

Overall, this is certainly one of the better brews that I've ever had from this contract brewing concern. Snowy street lamps in Stanley Park? A pleasant image, surely, and one made even more amenable by the fact that this one brought the goods - mandarin oranges, and a solid base IPA to boot.