Week 417
Industrial Arts Brewing Company - Beacon

 

16oz can purchased off the shelf as a single for $3.87 plus tax. PKG 06/08/24, so this is almost four months old. So funny, because it only made it to my local store in PA towards the end of the summer.

Look: The beer pours out with a very light copper color and a fluffy, tiny-bubbled off-white head of a finger. The head gradually reduced to about a half-finger. It has really nice fine carbonation streams rising up the glass. Looks very nice.

Smell: The nose is really expressive and delicious. I get nice dank notes along with bright citrus rind notes and a bit of resinous pine. It also smells a bit peppery, also nice melon notes. The combination of hops and the way that they were used here smells really nice, especially the Cascade and Simcoe (the CItra and Mosaic really brighten it up also). Very light crackery malt notes. It smells so clean and fresh!

Taste: It's so delicious and insanely drinkable. Up front, it's light and bright and citrusy and a bit tropical. Very pleasant. The finish is dry and bitter and a bit crispy. The bitter finish lingers long. The beer has a very light crackery malt presence that is basically undetectable until after the hop characteristics have faded on the finish. Very nice grapefruit rind flavors.

Feel: It's medium bodied. Initially I thought that this may be on the lighter side of medium bodied, but it actually has an oilier body on the finish so overall it has a medium body.

Overall: This is really well-done. It's interesting because while I can definitely see how this fits into the West Coast style of IPAs, I wouldn't say that it is a textbook WCIPA. That being said, it is a beautiful example of a WCIPA. I love that it incorporates both old school and new school hops into the West Coast IPA recipe, and the malt is also a bit toned down compared to the traditional examples. It's almost like a WCIPA / Cold IPA or West Coast Pilsner hybrid if that makes any sense.