Alchemist Broken Spoke

Pours a transparent deep golden with a spotty-lacing froth of white head. Aroma has a nice grapefruity resiny hop character and some lightly sweet malty notes. Starts semi-sweet and pale malty with a decent amount of citrusy bittering and flavor hops before a drier, crisp bittersweet finish. A pretty good APA, but I actually like the Moose Knuckle on cask better.

Draft at the brewpub (2/3/07) - Poured a yellow amber in color with a tint of orange and a medium, but thick white head. Aroma was a hop lovers dream... strong citrus/grapefruit and some pine. Flavor was strongly bitter (yum!) with grassy and ctirusy hops. Finish was clean, long and bitter. John makes many excellent beers, but this one is (perhaps) my favorite... awesome brew!!

2 draught pints at the brewery on 1/28/07
My favorite color for an IPA - platinum-blonde with a light, lemon-yellow tint. Lots of chill-haze and a medium amount of creamy white head that is retained well and laces in rings.
Strong aroma is full of dry tangerine, white grapefruit, mandarin oranges and leafy, bitter hop acids. Definitely on the heavy/assertive side in respect to bittering, but there is definitely an enjoyable amount of late addition and dry-hopping. A touch of highly acidic bitterness on the finish, almost sour is noted, but it’s no doubt from the massive amounts of hops in here and seems almost inevitable. Strong lemon-cherry aromas remind me of magnum hops, while there is a bit of cattiness or extreme plant-like astringency. Malt is gentle in aroma, only leaving light grains, bits of honey and light whitebread. Clean yeast and fortunately, no aspirin-like notes. No alcohol noted. I have had more fresh and fruity/complex hop aromas (though not too many more), but I think this one just suffers from too much bittering. Tone that down and this would be every bit as good as any San Diego IPA.
Bitterness shows in the flavor, especially on the finish, where the bare, pale malts do little to cover the strong amount of acidity. But like the nose, there are plenty of tangerines, mandarin oranges and soft conifer-like notes to go around (and of course grapefruit). Dextrinous body is quite dry in flavor, but very supportive in texture, as the perfect IPA should be. Highly engaging, tight carbonation, as I’ve come to expect from this fine brewery. No alcohol in the flavor, no flaws. I’d really like to see this with about half or a third of the IBUs cut out.

Pours a slightly cloudy golden color with a thin white head. Solid aroma of citrusy hops, it’s very fragrant and appealing. The flavor is superb, the amarillo hops express themselves with strenght and class, there’s also a strudy caramel malt and it all finishes with bitterness. Another superb hoppy beer from John Kimmich.