The Ex Black IPA
Russell Brewing Company

 

650ml bottle - the description on the label blurb is actually pretty amusing: 'too bad you can't call an Ex malty and refreshing'.

This beer pours a clear (I believe), very dark brown colour, with prominent amber basal edges, and three chubby fingers of puffy, rocky, and shiny tan head, which leaves some decent layered splotchy lace around the glass as it slowly evaporates.

It smells of lightly roasted caramel malt, a bready wheatiness, some mild black stone fruit, a hint of free-range ashiness, and some plain earthy, weedy, and leafy green hop bitters. The taste is gritty and grainy caramel malt, bittersweet chocolate, Wheat Thins, a muddled dark orchard fruitiness, subtle wet char, and more understated leafy, piney, and floral verdant hoppiness.

The carbonation is average in its palate-placating frothiness, the body a so-so medium weight, and sort of smooth, as the underlying charred essence kind of makes a minor nuisance of itself here. It finishes trending dry, the roasted nature of the malt hamstringing it, as such, as the tame hops linger at will.

Overall - yeah, as any regular reader of my rantings (so, no one) would know, I'm not exactly a fan of 'emblackening' my dear IPAs, but it's a thing now, and I gotta give credit where credit is due. This offering is not too bitter, not too black in its soul, and generally well-balanced - very much unlike my most recent ex.