Hop Ivy
Ska Brewing Co.

 

 

Nice head on burnt orange body with citrus hop finish. Better than most..

12 oz. Can
Best By: Aug 24 17

Pours a pretty nice clean/clear dark golden orange color, very nice carbonation, with a very nice thick/creamy/foamy three-finger head, which also leaves some really nice creamy sticky lacing behind. The nose is hoppy, malty, with some citrus. The tastes is also hoppy, malty, citrusy. Medium body, with a nice dry/bitter finish. Overall, a tasty brew, a nice thirst quencher.

 

 

Poured from a 12oz can with a best by date of 12/31/16; into a pub glass.
Appearance- dark gold/orange, cloudy, floating sediment and plenty of flowing bubbles; head is a towering, creamy white that leaves some patches of thick, sticky lacing!
Smell - primarily floral, but a blend of pine and citrus add to this beauty!
Taste - balanced pale malts, floral and pine hops; citrus is absent even though it seemed present in the nose.
Feel - easy drinking balanced ale with a solid hop profile and a good malt base to keep this in the APA category!
Overall - reminiscent of SN's pale ale with more of the Colorado features!

 

I've always enjoyed Ska beers. I've supported Ska because they're local and they are great at giving back to the community.

But this beer, for me, is by far in another class. Perhaps it's the Colorado ingredients, or perhaps is just my style. But this is one of the top hoppy pale ales around. Period.

Pours amber with a fluffy pale head. Aroma has plenty of grapefruit and lime. Taste has grapefruit rind, sweet caramel, pine, earth, spice, and substantial bitterness. Simultaneously earthy and bright. A good beer to come out of a neat idea.

 

Fun project (all Colorado-sourced ingredients), and, if not flashy, at least a very well-executed APA. Solid head, huge lacing, thin but long-lasting retention; nice cone of tiny bubbles highlight an intense blood-orange auburn hue. This is a very juicy expression of hops, which is immediately related in its bouquet, boasting grapefruit juice, lime leaf, lemon-drop, wet sage, and sweet tarragon. Taste-wise, there's still a load of lush juiciness, but it's inflected a little more: grapefruit pith, more sage, touch of rhubarb, candied lime, with a dry finishing that illumines notes of earthy, mossy, greeny bitters. Good, bright-leaning, mostly dry malt body buoys the hop activity, but despite the rich color, it's new too sweet, sticky, or syrupy-heavy. Indeed, altogether it's fairly refreshing for a darker-toned, earthier-end-of-the-spectrum APA.