The Mere Mortal, English Style IPA
Big Time Brewery & Alehouse

You might recognize the name as a lighthearted jab at Elysian's IPA, The Immortal. But where The Immortal is an American-style IPA in a northwestern vein, The Mere Mortal is brewed to "mere" English style. Given that English-style anything is bound to be staid and boring, you might expect Mere Mortal to languish some in comparison to its more deified neighbor. Well, it does. But that's the point. It's English style.

Once you accept this premise you can enjoy the beer for its attempt to be what IPAs once were (or what we suppose they once were). And in this sense Mere Mortal is very easy to appreciate. It is gently clouded with medium carbonation and sports a soft carpet of white suds trailing jazzy lace formations. The big, sensuous mouthfeel is full, satiny and refined. An English yeast profile defines the aroma and elements of the taste with a tangy doughiness I don't personally care for, and the overarching hoppiness of a more Americanized IPA never arrives to conceal this. But a measure of citric bittering tips the balance towards hops, if only in a more ordinary pale ale sense of it.

On the whole a very well constructed beer in an older, traditional sense. And frankly, I'll take a skillfully produced old-school, low-intensity IPA over a less well executed flamboyant hop demon any day.