West Coast IPA
Sawback Brewing Co.

 

473ml can poured into tulip.

Pours a slightly hazy golden yellow with half a finger of off-white head that leaves some interesting distant city skyline lace as it recedes.

Smells of grapefruit, orange, peach, mango, pineapple, lemon zest, some crispy caramel malt, wet stone and pine resin. Very nice.

Tastes of blood orange, muddled tropical and stone fruit, more grainy malt, mineral water and leafy, piney hops.

Feels soft and fuzzy. Medium bodied with fluffy carbonation. Finishes dry.

Verdict: Highly recommended. A very tasty old-fashioned IPA.

22 oz bomber from the taproom. Pours a hazy pale straw yellow with limited irregular white head. Aroma has notes of grainy malt sweetness, citrus, some pine, grapefruit.
Taste has a very nice pine hoppiness, orange, and balance of malt sweetness.
Medium mouthfeel with sweetness carrying yet leaving a very pleasant hop bitterness at the finish.

473ml can - one of a trio of new products from this nascent central Alberta brewing concern.

This beer pours a mostly clear, pale golden yellow colour, with three fingers of puffy, loosely foamy, and mildly bubbly eggshell white head, which leaves some decent frilly lace around the glass as it rather lazily blows off.

It smells of somewhat dank pine resin, grainy and crackery cereal malt, muddled domestic citrus rind, a stoney flintiness, and more leafy, weedy, and floral green hop bitters. The taste is bready and doughy caramel malt, some orange, red grapefruit, and lemon citrus peel, a damp minerality, and some herbal, floral, and piney verdant hoppiness.

The carbonation is average in its palate-satiating frothiness, the body a solid medium weight, and generally smooth, with a small airy creaminess creeping in as things warm up out of the ol' basement bar fridge. It finishes off-dry, the frooty and piney essences co-mingling (as they should) at the lingering after-party.

Overall - this does indeed reveal itself to be a veritable throw-back to the kind of IPA that roped me into the game in the first place. Maybe not as much bitterness as back then, but that's the trend these days, I suppose. Very much worth checking out, IMHO.