Ladner Clay IPA
Barnside Brewing Co.

Hazy yellow amber color. Poured a medium head that dropped down to a patchy skiff after a minute. Low flow of medium sized bubbles from the bottom of the glass. Left narrow lines of lace.

Medium strong hop smell. Light malt. Light citrus. A touch of yeast. There is something under these scents that makes me think of barnyard, but that isn't it; I expected a bit of a barnyard, but this is more like a race track next to a barnyard. Swirling the glass kicked up a grassy smell and a mild, but proper barnyard.

There is something off in the flavor, its like a slightly composted grass with some black tea blended in; it might be the hops. Mild to medium bitters that are very light compared to a typical IPA. Nice level of malt. The aftertaste is much more bitter, with the odd tea and grass blended in. The off flavor is quite off-putting, and I can't decide if this should be a 1 or a 2. I would probably not refuse this if it was the only beer available. However I don't think I would drink a second. So 2 it is.

Light tongue tingling. The foam is adjacent to creamy. Turns into coarser bubbles after several seconds. Very slight astringency.

This could have been an interesting beer. The light bitters were a nice change for an IPA; perhaps it should have been classed as a pale ale instead. However the weird composted grass flavor quite ruined it. Was there a really bad batch of hops used?