Apex Predator Double IPA
Apex Brewing

 

To me, this beer is absolute perfection. I bought all I could since it is super seasonal and f**king delicious. I seriously wish Bench Creek would produce this year round.

 

Surprise fall release of spring seasonal (Alberta optimism?). This pours a very hazy (though not milkshake) pale yellow. Sweet hoppy fruitiness of grapefruit and pineapple on nose. Taste more sweetened grapefruit, less pineapple, with hint of pine. Hoppy but not really bitter at 100 IBU with well hidden high ABV. Very good, pushing great DIPA.
Note: drove from Edmonton to Edson just for Bench Creek Brewing...on tap; gotta say on tap this seems more piney - closer to great.

Jan 13/21
Not had in a while - first love the can makeover - debonair grizzly in a tux holding a pint. Pours a bright hazy golden with huge tight off white head. Aroma dank resinous hops, grapefruit, tropical, pineapple and a bit sweaty.
On palate pink grapefruit, grapefruit rind, sweet pineapple, tropical but wonderful dank resinous hop with pine at the back that lingers forever with a smooth yet bitey creamy full mouthfeel. West coast meets hazy and integrates superbly.

 

Juice bomb. Fairly restrained bitterness with a big citrus character. Good amount of residual sugar and good carbonation. Nice cloudy golden pour. Very nice stuff and far too drinkable.

 

 

Finally snagged a bottle of this from a brand new craft beer store in Airdrie, Ab, called Thumbprint.

Pours with an amazing 3-finger head, lovely lacing, and bright white. Head dissipated fairly quickly. Beer colour is a hazy peach/nectarine. Overall it looks amazing.

Hop blast up front on the aroma: metallic, green apple, pear, candied orange, burnt toast. It smells nice, but it doesn't do the taste justice because this is damn flavourful once you stop huffing the aroma and get down to brass tacks.

The mouthfeel is fantastic, you can tell that right away. 8.2%? Holy, this goes down like a session IPA. Smooth, low carbonation, even a bit oily, but that's not to say that it lacks carbonation--it's got a good prickly mouthfeel as well. Wow. But there is no way in hell I would guess this is any more than 6% abv. Yeah, I'm not even getting a hint of booziness from the taste.

Flavour is full on dank, metallic lemon and apricot. Really fresh grapefruit, hint of lime, but not without a little bit of burnt toastiness and caramel from the malt, either. Also, seemingly benign bitterness: I could drink a four pack of these and not be puckering my lips from the IBUs. Solid, solid, solid.

Great stuff. Glad to have these guys in my home province. Definitely one of the best IPAs I've had from Alberta. Wow, this beer is going down so quickly. Dangerous. Colour me impressed.

 

473ml can poured into tulip 6/4/17

A very hazy light orange, enough clarity to see bubbles throughout, thumbs width of foam falls quickly leaving no lace

S big stone-fruit nose, peaches and apricots are jumping out of the glass, bruised mango, pineapple, more peaches, some pine, a hint of sweet malt and maybe some cattiness in the background, smells top notch

T citrus rind comes out, less stone fruit but still lots of tropical notes, the pine comes out strong, a small step back from the world class nose but that's still great

M fairly light for a DIPA and the bubbles soften it up even further, nice bitter bite and a strong piney rind finish

O this is my kind brew, big tropical nose with lots of pine and rind, dangerous stuff really at over 8%, this stuff drinks like a session beer and hits you like liquor

This 2 week old can is drinking great, hands down one of the better IPA's to ever come out of this part of the world. I didn't expect to like this one as much as I did, a must try if your in Alberta.....

 

 

Note: This review is of the first batch of Apex Predator. The 2nd batch was really different and completely inferior.

A: Opaque apricot, no yeast
S: Citrus, mango, plum, big aroma
T: Tropical mango bubblegum, mid bitterness, resinous, fruity
F: Juicy, soft, pillowy
A very nice NE style hazy DIPA.

1L howler from Sherbrooke Liquor - apparently this is essentially Bench Creek's previous Troubled Waters collab, but now with a few hop tweaks, and will be a mainstay once it enters cans in the next little while.

This beer pours a turbid, medium banana yellow colour, with one thick finger of weakly puffy, loosely foamy, and bubbly dirty white head, which leaves a few instances of dissolving ice floe lace around the glass as things quickly sink away.

It smells of musky and dank pine resin, domestic orange and white grapefruit citrus flesh, muddled tropical fruit, bready and crackery pale malt, a lesser biscuity caramel sweetness, and more leafy, weedy, and faintly perfumed floral green hop bitters. The taste is bready and doughy caramel malt, a further cereal graininess, juicy orange, lemon, and red Texas grapefruit citrus, some papaya, pineapple, and kiwi exotic fruity notes, a flinty stoniness, and more leafy, herbal, and wet pine needle verdant hoppiness.

The carbonation is fairly laid-back in its generally supportive frothiness, the body a solid middleweight, and mostly smooth, as the hops do well to keep the noise levels down right about now. It finishes off-dry, with a nice mix of citrus, tropicals, wet rocks, and forest floor detritus.

Overall, this comes across much in the same vein as its predecessor, duly aping the American Northeast IPA style to which it aspires. The one so-far unmentioned metric that should now be noted is the pretty much totally and thoroughly integrated 8.2 points of the ol' wowee sauce - always a nice thing, yeah? A genial new addition to the Alberta beer-scape that will continue to ingratiate all of we hopheads out there.