Equinox
Commonwealth Brewing Company

L: Poured from a tallboy can to a snifter glass. Had an orange / yellow color and a very cloudy consistency. There was a half inch of foamy, somewhat long-lasting head. Excellent lacing.

S: A very good aroma of dank hops, tropical fruit, malt, melon, and citrus fruit.

T: Tasted of a small amount of malt (mostly in the finish), a lot of tropical fruit (mango, pineapple), a bit of melon, a good shot of dank hops (not too much, though), and some citrus fruit as well (grapefruit). A sweet, fruity, and lively flavor. The dank hops and fruit elements mix well together, offsetting one another. Quite tasty.

F: A good amount of carbonation with a vibrant finish. Medium-bodied.

O: A wholly likable, well made DIPA. Drinkable.

 

Pure Orange Julius body. Turbid, pulpy, yellow-orange with a lot of particulate (including globs at the bottom of the can) and a half-finger of eggshell head that holds up pretty well and provides solid lacing. Tons of tiny bubbles flowing up the side of the glass. I know what’s in the glass, so the look is perfectly fine for the category. But beer would be way down in the list of what you’d guess the fluid is if looking at it with no context.

Aromas are a wonderful, juicy medley of robust citrus, stone and tropical fruits, grapes, berries, and cantaloupe. Big grassy notes, lots of wine characteristics, and a little resin. Very bright — perhaps a tad green — and very inviting. Meaningful dankness shows up as the beer warms. Wonderful aroma profile.

Taste profile has some great unique components but overall is a bit of a mess, with many of the notes from the nose making appearances, but not necessarily in a harmonious way. There’s a really powerful white wine flavor running throughout, and unfortunately there’s also a powerful (unpleasantly) bitter green astringency — the dreaded “hop burn” — presumably from all the particulate. It’s balanced at least partially by a really lovely fruity sweetness. But you can’t really get away from the greenness, which is a shame.

Feel is the typical velvety but slightly thin NE offering, quite nice in its own right but not really what I’m looking for in a IIPA, so perhaps the categorization is wrong.

I’m a big Commonwealth fan, but this one misses the mark in a few places. Not one of their best.

16oz can into an IPA glass

Look: Opaque pale orange with a fluffy white head that dissipates almost entirely. but leaves some spotty lacing down the glass.
Smell: Lots of fruit aroma to be found here, green melon, pineapple, papaya/guava, mango, orange/tangerine and grapefruit.
Taste: Follows the nose with a lot of tropical fruit and citrus, with a bitter/dry finish.
Feel: Medium body, very small bubbles/low carbonation.
Overall: This brew masks it's 8.8% ABV well behind a huge screen of citrus and tropical fruit. A very solid DIPA.