Richmond India Pale Ale
Grain Bin Brewing Company

650ml bottle, part of a mixed 4-pack of bombers to make their way out of Grande Prairie of late. Not quite sure as to the exact nature of the IPA herein, so I'm just going with my feeling from the name, for now.

This beer pours a clear, medium copper amber colour, with a near teeming tower of puffy, loosely foamy, and well-bubbly off-white head, which leaves some decent sudsy broken webbed lace around the glass as it lazily subsides.

It smells of bready and doughy caramel malt, further sugary toffee square notes, some mild peppery notes, a muddled pear/apple fruitiness, and some plain leafy, weedy, and herbal green hop bitters. The taste is gritty and grainy pale malt, a lessened biscuity caramel sweetness, more weirdly spicy mixed peppercorn esters, some still hard to really parse pome and citrus fruitiness, and more leafy, herbal, and slightly perfumed floral verdant hoppiness.

The carbonation is adequate in its peppy-ass frothiness, the body a solid middleweight, and generally smooth, just a touch of unworthy hop interference maybe, sort of, kind of thinking about putting forth a notion to make a fuss here. It finishes off-dry, the biscuity nature of the malt making just enough gravy in its lingering state to make my palate essentially happy to oblige.

Overall, I suppose it was presumptuous of me (I have enough unrelated experience in that form of late to last me a fucking lifetime) to make the Yankee call right off the bat for a new local-ish IPA offering. Perhaps I should have taken the name 'Richmond' with a grain of salt (there are both West Coast, and London Town references aplenty) to wit, but I am ill-afforded that option, here, yeah? At any rate, this is a genial enough English version of the IPA style, from a remote place that I apparently have a problem giving a proper shit about right now.