Intonation
Brown's Brewing Company

This one pours a cloudy golden orange color, with a small head, and lots of lacing.

This smells like bready malt, bitter piney hops, orange peel, and mango.

This is a little malty and a little bit bitter for the style, with a heavy and grainy feel to it. There's sa decent orange and mango thing, but the other things are holding this DIPA back.

This sits heavy on the palate, and hinders the drinkability for sure. I want a bit more creaminess or crispness to this ine.

I usually like Brown's a bit more than I like this beer.

 

 

 

 

This beer pours a cloudy deep orange color with a two finger, creamy off white head. Retention is excellent and there are many webs of lacing left on the glass.

Smell is pine, citrus pith, pineapple, grapefruit, mango, sweet caramel and some bread.

The taste is more hop forward than the smell suggests, but there is a nice strong malt backbone holding them up. The finish is moderately bitter, but a little less so than I was expecting from 75 IBU.

Feel is is medium and pretty smooth with moderate carbonation and a nice tingle from the bitterness.

Overall this is a decent beer, but nothing to write home about. It reminds me of a Southern Tier Nu Skool mixed with a Middle Ages Late Night, both of which are significantly cheaper. So I probably won't be picking this one up again.

If you are looking for a quality lower priced DIPA, this is it. Very good DIPA. It even has a hint of black liquorice, IMHO.

 

 

A great DIPA, but not an ELITE DIPA. Brewed very well and to style of the new classic DIPA flavor profile, with just a hint of old school bitterness.

A few years ago, this would have really wowed me, but a seasoned craft drinker will probably feel like this is similar to so many other beers within the style these days. I was happy to try this and would never be disappointed if this is what I had to drink, but I just want to be fair when I say that I would have trouble picking this out of a line-up.

 

 

 

New brewery to me... found this on the shelves of Craft Beer Cellar Westford yesterday afternoon and have been excited to crack into it since I put it in my fridge last night! Apparently they've been around since 1993, but they're a small independent brewery near the western state line of VT in easternmost NY. Cool, eye-catching can design on this one... hexagonal shapes with a focus on cool colors. Reminds me of some of the modern design that breweries like Stillwater have been working with for the last year or two. At first, I definitely did a double take and thought this was a brown ale thanks to the brewery name being right underneath the beer name, but then I realized I might be illiterate. C'est la vie!

Pours a very nice, and relatively unusual (in today's beer scene) medium-amber color with a generous dollop of creamy head that seems to last and last. Bone white and measuring about three-to-four fingers at its highest point, the rounded cap of this foam tops off this beer with great aplomb. Body is mostly hazy and translucent, giving off light overtones of deep orange. Lace consistency seems moderate-to-moderately high. Good looker in my glass. Wonder what it's like behind its appearance, though.

Nose is fairly caramel forward, as expected from the color. Reminds me immediately of a slightly "older school" version of a double IPA. Those who have been drinking IPAs for longer than a few years will probably remember the kind... balanced, well-composed, thoughtfully-hoppy and bitter without being pure juice. I like the new school stuff a lot, but it's always kind of cool to be reminded of the glory days, and this seems to bring those forward right upfront. Candied citrus rind, leafy/semi-floral hops and some spicy/rye-like pine and resin/earthiness. Strong grapefruit peel and tangerine-like citrus oil. Doughy yeast and some biscuity malt characteristics in there as well, kind of underneath the sheen of hoppy, oily goodness.

On the tongue, this is punchy and bitter with strong resinous and earthy flavors backed up by grapefruit, orange and tangerine-like notes from the hops. Still has a slight spice character here; definitely a little rye-like to my palate. Good malt and hop balance, with some striking caramel notes balancing the intense hops. I like the overall flavors here; though it's rather safe, it turns out the Citra/Amarillo/Mosaic dry-hop combo comes together pretty well overall. I don't get any of the crazier flavors Mosaic can bring, and I feel it only really lends strong aromatic pine in this recipe. The Citra/Amarillo duo is much more interesting in the end, as I get the light florals, pine sap and varied, rindlike citrus more apparently than anything else. Very clean profile (no off flavors whatsoever, nor is there any extraneous yeastiness) with lingering bitterness and pine in the finish.

Feel is oily and slick on the palate. Mildly heavy body but pretty drinkable for an 8%er. Carbonation is a little on the lighter side of things; not very effervescent, and the body being on the heavier side of medium thanks to the crystal malt inclusion/slight focus. If you can live with that, this is a really nice little beer. Probably won't go back to it, and a single was plenty for me, but this is overall quite well-realized. I'm a fan and I'll keep an eye out for other releases by these guys!

Poured into a tulip.
The appearance was a murky bronzed orange to copper color with a slim finger's worth of white foamy head that slid off at a fairly slow pace. Semi-sticky lace wound around the sides of the glass.
The aroma had some sweet grapefruit hop spice/zestiness riding on into some light citrusy pulpiness and pouncing on the bitterness portion of the rind. Just a touch of grassiness came in underneath.
The flavor seemed to have a nice embrace of the balance between sweet to spicy to zesty and doing a fairly decent job of pulling in the bitterness. Light portion of wheatiness. Aftertaste seemed to grab a bit more of the bitterness while pushing back the spicy/zestiness.
The mouthfeel was about medium bodied, perhaps just a hair under yet gave off a fairly decent sipping quality due to the harshness of the bitterness bite. I didn't mind so much for me, but I can see how a ton of people are possibly going to write this one off. However, the carbonation and the ABV are both on par by the brewer.
Overall, as a DIPA, I say this one gets it done right! Give it a little bit, let it warm and in my opinion, I say this seems to bring that "old school" DIPA bitterness to the ring to play with some "new school" DIPA hop aromas.