Black Is Beautiful: West Coast Style IPA
Weathered Souls Brewing Co.

Well I thought it was gonna be a black IPA. From the name. And from the first round of black is beautiful, which had a dense and dark and delicious stout in the can. But it ain't, so get over that. Just a regular IPA.

Now the beer itself is solid, nicely hoppy with a solid malt backbone. Pretty easy drinking too.

Poured from a can into a pint glass
Appearance – The beer pours a lightly hazed orange amber color with a one finger head of puffy white foam. The head has a great level of retention, with it fading slowly over time and leaving a good deal of foamy lace on the sides of the glass.
Smell – The aroma of the brew is strongest of a caramel malt and light bready smell mixed with aromas of tangerine and orange sweetness. Along with these smells comes notes of tropical fruits as well as a rather sizable amount of earthy hop. With the earthy aroma (which is the predominate hop aroma) comes other hop smells of an herbal and grapefruit nature. Overall, the smell is a mix of dank, sweet, and malty.
Taste – The taste starts out with a moderately crisp malt flavor that is a mix between a cracker malt taste and a rather bready and grainy taste. There is a little bit of caramel malt sweetness upfront as well as a touch of tangerine, both of which fad slightly as the taste advances. Right from the start there is a decent showing of an earthy and herbal hop taste, both of which grow even stronger as the taste advances on the tongue. At the same time, a bit of peach and some bitter grapefruit rind also join in, restoring the loss in sweetness from the lessening of intensity of the caramel and tangerine, as well as increasing the hop nature of the taste. With the mix of flavors at the end, one is left with a moderately crisp and more dankly hopped taste to linger on the tongue.
Mouthfeel – The body of the brew is medium in thickness and creaminess with a carbonation level that is slightly higher. A thinner body may have been slightly better for the style, but overall, the feel was pretty decent.
Overall – A quite pleasant, danker, and more earthy hopped IPA. Not a citrus powerhouse, which I greatly enjoyed. Hopefully they make this, or something similar in nature to this, a regular brew in their lineup.