Organic Imperial India Pale Ale
Plough Monday

 

 

This is one of the worst IPAs I've tasted in quite some time. It was given to me as a gift from a friend who traveled to Portand for work and I am always grateful for that, but if I ever go out to Portland, I'll stay away from Plough Monday offerings. This beer was just a mess of bitter hops and grainy malts. Nothing was working here at all for me.

2016-07-08
375ml bottle served in a large snifter. If there's a date, I can't find it.

Pours a nice ruby-amber with a medium head and solid retention. Medium to heavy fine carbonation. Smell is malt bomb, plum and sour, not very pleasant.

Taste is moderately bitter, but with little specific character. Some caramel or toastiness. Bitterness builds quickly, not much to balance it out.

Mouthfeel is very dry. Overall, not impressive.

 

Poured into a Seattle Beer Week pint glass. Pours a deep medium coppery amber with a fine one finger white head with good retention and lacing. Aroma of rich, sweet caramel malt, piney hops with a bit of dankness. Flavor starts with strong, semi-sweet caramel malt with a hint of biscuit, but quickly is overwhelmed by intense hop bitterness with mostly grassy flavors; lingering alpha hop bitterness that is a bit astringent. Medium bodied with a pleasant light creaminess. A quite odd imperial IPA. Both aroma and initial flavor are intensely malty, but the malt seems to give up mid taste to a wave of strong alpha hops. The malt is nice and the hops are strong, but something seems unbalanced here. I’m on the fence with this one; there are no off flavors, but the interaction between the hops and the malt base is unusual. I finished this big IPA and enjoyed it, but would probably not revisit it. I liked the last Plough Monday IPA I tried, which was also kind of idiosyncratic; it grew on me a way this one did not. The ABV is well covered.

On tap at Growler Guys, I'm hoping this is an aberration, and that things will improve over time (as the brewery is fairly new). The beer looks OK (copper orange color with decent retention and lacing), but that's the only thing about this beer that was OK. This beer is quite sweet on the palate, with not nearly enough hoppy bitterness to counter it. This is probably the most malt forward DIPA I've ever tasted, and given this level of sweetness, it makes the fairly high alcohol all the more noticeable and apparent. Finish is heavy and a bit hot, and drinkability is terrible.

There's way too many good IPA's and DIPA's on the market for me to ever give even a thought to trying this again.