Hopfest
Big Time Brewery & Alehouse

On tap at Big Time

A: coppery to orange in color with a frothy off white head. A little cloudy. Nice lacing. Head retention was excellent.

S: definitely brewed with citra but not much, and not likely dry hopped. The aroma of peaches and mangos is there but it's faint. I'm guessing the citra was used sparingly at the end of the boil, and mostly used for bittering.

T&M: medium bodied, big malty base, kind of sweet, like toffee. Nothing over bearing, but it definitely feels bigger than it is. I'd have to guess abv is around 4-5%. Ends with a nice hoppy bite.

O: not bad, I've brewed a better citra pale ale myself. I prefer more aroma, less sweetness and a slightly drier finish.

The beer was a copper-amber color with a one finger off-white head that showed good retention and heavy lacing. The smell has citric and piney hop odors, and not much else. The taste is also dominated by the hops with very northwest style grapefruit elements with some darker floral hop notes too. There is a medium long finish and a surprisingly smooth mouthfeel for such an angular, bitter beer. Delightful and drinkable for hopheads.

Appearance – This one came out of the tap dark and malty-looking brown in color with a nice, lacing head.

Smell – The big, fruity hops were very pleasing and probably balanced a bit towards floral. There was a very modest malt balance that was more for show than anything else, which is very typical of the region. I just couldn’t stop drawing in the wonderful bouquet emitting from my pint glass.

Taste – The malts came out much bigger at the taste. The hop flavor profile followed the nose, but they weren’t as blended as they could have been.

Mouthfeel – This one is big in the mouth. It is definitely medium-bodied with some huge caramel sweetness at the finish. Again, I thought the one lacking characteristic was that the flavors and mouth sensations didn’t work well together. IOW, it has all the right notes but was a bit off-key.

Drinkability – This APA went down well enough and would score a bit higher if you aged it for 3 months or so to get the flavors a little more blended.

Medium Gold color. Med head. Aroma is floral hops, grapefruity hops and fruit. A medium bodied IPA. Malts are nutty and sweet. Hops are abundant in this beer, grapefruit and floral flavors predominate, but a touch of piney and resiny hops as well. Bitter, yet well balanced by the malt sweetness. Interesting beer. Hoppy and bitter. Mouthfeel is full and round. Finish is clean and smooth. Aftertaste is slightly bitter.

First beer I could reach at this years OBF. Quite a gorgeous copper color with a domineering foam top. Smell was somewhat subdued until a blew a bit of the foam out of the way, and whoosh! the fresh aroma hit me. A very big and pungent, yet pleasant smell, not too much different than rolling the cones between your fingers at the Hop Union booth to the north. Interesting bittering profile, first brew with Simcoe variety, which has a full, somewhat meaty feeling. Nice complimentary malt. Somewhat similar to a copper in body as well. Difficult to drink in any abundance because of the strong hop; you'd likely run out of saliva quickly.