Spiced IPA (IPA Mole)
Harpoon Brewery & Beer Hall

Had this beer on Cask at the Horseshoe Pub in Hudson, MA. Listed as Harpoon "Spiced" IPA and confirmed by the brewery(with an alternate name idea, keep reading).

Poured exactly like the regular IPA. Bright orange body with a small bright white head. Since it was cask the head has more of a bubbled look than typical IPA, but still nice and white.

Taste was in your face fire. Medium bodied with a good backbone of malt, some caramel and nice natural woodsy flavor, but spicy. I mean, spicy, spicy, spicy. It was such a pure hot pepper taste, not a tabasco or other flavor, just pure habanero or pepper spray type burn where it's so big you can't distinguish which type of pepper it is. Not undrinkable at all though. If you can take spicy food, you can handle this beer. Very easy drinking, and the fact it was served at cask tempurature made the spicy flavor pop even more. Had it been cold the complex burn would have been lost. Hops are hard to make out at all, same with bitterness. Ends with a long lingering burn in your mouth.

Overall a very cool beer. I know it sounds like it's just pure burn, but it was excellent. (why do hot wings have to be tame to enjoy them?)

A side note here...

After having it I couldn't seem to find any info about it on-line so I wrote Harpoon and Adam from Harpoon send me an e-mail with a bit of it's history.

"This particular beer was a one time creation by one of our brewer's. The beer itself is a cask version of our IPA, and the brewer created a spice concoction of diced Habanero peppers, red chili powder, and cocoa beans and let it age for a couple of weeks in the cask. The spice mixture smelled very similar to a barbecue potato chip seasoning and we all decided it would be fun and interesting. He wanted to call it an IPA Mole."

Thanks Adam!!! So, we might see at again as the "IPA Mole". Cool!