Gradient Descent
Forest & Main - The Brewery

16oz can purchased from the fridge as a single for $5.99 plus tax. According to Instagram, this was released on October 18, 2023. So this beer is 12 1/2 months old.

Look: This was a bit of a gusher upon cracking open the can! Slightly hazy golden orange color with a light khaki-colored head. The head was two fingers and rocky at first. Now it is about half a finger and more compact.

Smell: Nice orange rind notes along with pine and woody notes. Reminiscent of Sierra Nevada Pale Ale. Some green bell pepper notes on the finish after swirling. Overall it smells simple and also delicious and refreshing.

Taste: It's very flavorful. The finish has a nice bitterness and it also is somewhat crisp because the bitterness, while strong, is not highly pithy and doesn't linger on the palate so long. I feel that this helps the drinkability and makes you want to drink it faster. The beer has a lot of resinous pine, orange and grapefruit rind, spicy, and peppery notes. There is a nice caramel malt flavor that really rounds out the flavor profile.

Feel: Medium plus bodied. The carbonation is nice, it's soft and has a mild creamy mouthfeel.

Overall: It's a tasty West Coast IPA. I think that I am learning that even though WCIPAs probably have longer shelf lives than Hazy IPAs, it's still better to drink them fresh. Usually, if I have the choice between drinking a fresh hazy IPA or a fresh WCIPA, I try to drink the hazy IPA first because they tend to drop off quicker. However I do enjoy the WCIPAs more, so maybe I should drink them first?

another fire beer from them