Royston Rye IPA
Vancouver Island Brewing

355ml can, part of the most recent VIB mixed-pack to arrive here in Alberta. Named in honour of something called the Royston Wrecks Breakwater.

This beer pours a mostly clear, medium copper amber colour, with four fingers of puffy, finely foamy, and somewhat bubbly ecru head, which leaves some random splotchy and sudsy lace around the glass as it very slowly dissipates.

It smells of semi-sweet, bready and doughy caramel malt, a lesser rye graininess, sugary citrus flesh, a mild earthy yeastiness, and further leafy, weedy, and piney green hop bitters. The taste is gritty and grainy caramel malt, still kind of tentative rye cereal, muddled domestic citrus rind, ephemeral yeasty notes, and more earthy, musty, and resinous piney verdant hoppiness.

The carbonation is adequate in its palate-coddling frothiness, the body a solid middleweight, and generally smooth, with nothing really causing any sort of fuss here. It finishes well off-dry, the mixed malt and candied citrus thing barely tempered by the lingering forest floor detritus bitterness.

Overall - this seems to be a fairly tasty concoction, if a tad sweet at times, but it works. The blended graininess and equally complex hop bill makes for an interesting combination, and one of the better non-Hermannator offerings that I have had from this impossible to search for on BA brewing concern.