Black IPA
Pipe Dream Brewing

 

Actually a solid Black IPA from Pipe Dream. Pours a very dark mahogany with a finger sticky tan head that leaves plenty of waves of lace as it settles at a rather quick pace. 4

Smell is pine, apricot, biscuity grain, cocoa, dry coffee grounds, and some grapefruit. 4

Taste follows cocoa, coffee, and biscuity grain up front, leads to pine, apricot, and grapefruit and as always with this style you either enjoy and embrace or think WTF this is strange, I personally dig it and feel they did an excellent job on this one. 4.25

Mouthfeel is bigger than average, plenty of life, a touch dry for sure, and at 7% ABV extremely approachable. 4.25

Overall this is exactly what I want out of a black IPA, slightly roasty check, a tad dry check,some bitterness check, and odd but in a nice way check. Well done here. 4

 

From a crowler. It is not dated but I sampled it on March 22,2017.

It pours dark brown to just about black with a long lasting foamy tan head that laces as it fades. Opaque.

The aroma is vibrant with citrus, herbal, and resin hop notes while the dark malt character is muted.

The body is lighter than I hoped and on the astringent side.

In the taste I get the same resiny, herbal, and citrus hop characters with a mildly lingering bitter bite at the finish. Some dark bread malts underneath but not forward at all.

Crowler from Bert's
Solid dark brown color with a huge frothy tan head that persists. Earthy citrus pine and light tropical on the nose with plenty of dark charred malts to counter. Flavor follows the aroma but is more malty than I expected. Light astringency light hop bitterness. Not Bad.