Black IPA
Bent Barley Brewing Company

i feel like beer geekdoms love affair with black ipa has tired, you just dont see these around as much as you did five or ten years ago, and i really miss the good ones. it was nice to encounter this here yesterday, and its a very cool recipe. lively from the tap, a bit more active and heady than some of the others they have going right now. shiny near black, not overly dense, with a tall tan head on it and nice retention, lots of little bubbles. aroma is high roast but not bitter, they use mostly or entirely colorado grown and malted barley in this, and there is a definite freshness to the grain thats at least as relevant to the beer overall as the flavor of the barley itself. the hops arent overly aromatic or flavorful to me, its almost like, its generically hoppy, more bitter and vegetal and green than anything else, but nicely dosed, its just that the beer, even though they call it ipa, is much more about the malts than the hops, and thats true in the taste. the roast is awesome, earthy dry coffee character to it, a trace of char, and faint pine to the hops that keeps it hearty and woodsy and wintery. nice carbonation, not too much body for all the depth of flavor on the grain, and really well refined overall. looking forward to see where these guys go, they are way ahead of the new brewery curve!