Tipping Point
Block 15 Brewing - Southtown Tap Room

Color is amber with plenty of foam in the Brigand chalice. The aroma does not knock you out at first, but there's a pleasant woodsy smell. The carbonation is pillowy and gives a nice lift to the sturdy flavors. The taste is spruce right of the bat, but not overly strong. As you sip, it becomes more dank and this could be some kind of new hop experience. But the evergreen taste and smell are there into the aftertaste. Overall this is a better than average spruce-flavored brew and a pleasure to drink. Definitely robust. From the 16 oz can purchased at the Community Coop. Dated 06/25/24.

 

 

Look: Bright looking medium orange in color with a frothy white head that blooms to the rim and slowly settles to a pillow, leaving great lacing behind as it does
Aroma: Crushed spruce needles, menthol, resinous spruce pitch, kumquats, wafts of dank, and warmed bread
Taste: Resinous spruce pitch, crushed needles, and menthol come out swinging, striking hard and then softening and deepening their profile. A little citrus and dank dance around in the background but this is a spruce-led conifer bomb through and through until it closes with a light bite and the coolness of menthol
Mouthfeel: Full, lightly slick, medium-high carbonation, and light dryness on the finish
Overall: This is outstanding stuff. I was initially trepidatious about this as I had an unpleasant experience with a spruce ale years ago but since recently becoming a fan of beer with fir, I figured I’d try again and alas, this grabs me like fir-infused beers do and is delicious. A nice spruce/conifer profile and the telltale minty component that goes along with this is such a tasty combo in my opinion. Leave it to these folks to get me back on the spruce beer wagon and kudos on this gem. Recommended

 

Poured into a Seattle Beer Week pint glass. Pours a moderately hazy, medium golden amber with a fine, two finger white head with great retention and solid lacing. Aroma of lightly caramel malt, piney hops, spruce, and light citrus. Flavor is mild caramel malt, piney and fruit hops, fresh spruce needles, light mixed tropical fruit. Spruce and an unidentifiable light fruit character in the finish. Medium bodied with light creaminess. I've always been a fan of spruce in IPAs and this has some of the most authentic tasting I've had; most of the time the spruce is hard to tell from other piney notes in the hops. What really makes this stand out is a very subtle, but flavorful mixed fruit note that shows up in the finish and balanced out the spruce wonderfully. The malt too, seems understated, but has a nice light caramel hint. This is a stellar spruce IPA, one of the best I've tried and I've liked them all. Really wish I'd tried this earlier; it's long gone from the stores (most Block 15 IPAs evaporate quickly off shelves here), and I wish I had a couple more.