Ale Asylum Ballistic IPA

Brewed by Ale Asylum
Style: India Pale Ale (IPA)
Madison, Wisconsin USA

Dark amber to copper in color. Moderate, light cream, meringue looking head. Grilled grapefruit aromas, with burnt sugar and pine. If I smell too long, I catch pine cleaner and some alcohols, but still an interesting nose. Soft, full feel. Sweet caramel start. Grains and grapefruit in the middle. Some acidic lemon in the finish and into the linger. Pine and resin seem over abundant. Certainly could use a bit more malt depth to balance thing out, but perhaps ballistic hops is what we are after. Who an I to argue. Who is John Galt?

I must be missing something with this beer. If I’m a huge fan of hops loaded brew (which I am) I should probably really enjoy this beer, right? Tasting this beer was like licking a lemon. There was something unappealing and one dimensional (as stated below) about this beer that really dissapointed me. I am a big fan of Ale Asylum, i love all of their beers. But this one was subpar. A semi hazey amber colour with a fairly large head. Aroma has fruit on the nose and noticeable floral hops. But taste was sour. Turned me off completely. Very little malt character. A beer mainly dominated by an unbalanced overload of hops and nothing else. The hopalicious is one of my favorite beers around. It’s too bad. I was really looking forward to this one.

Aroma was citrusy with a quickly catching up of caramel malting,others thought it was much more citrusy then I did. Taste is a monster shot of grapefriut flavor and tartness, not tremendously strong, but as distinct and clear as if you had licked a grapefruit,just enough malting to prevent you from puckering in the finish. On tap at the Malt House in Madison,hope the bottle is as good

Picked up a six-pack at Discount Liquors in downtown Waukesha, WI. Pours a semi-hazy amber brew with a thick off-white head that slowly dissipates and leaves behind a thin off-white cream top. Aroma of grapefruit zest, some flowery perfume, caramel malt, more citrus and a hint of toffee. Taste is medium bodied, light carbonation with flavors of dry citrus and grapefruit zest, some caramel malt and a hint of herbal spice. Finish is semi-dry with a mild bitterness that quickly disappears. Not as overly hoppy as the Hopalicious but more closer to the American Pale Ale category.

Bottle - Man, I’m totally confused by this beer. It looks gorgeous - an inviting hazy amber pour with a big frothy head. It smells just about as good as it looks, as the Amarillos are at their grapefruity best. There’s mandarin oranges and flowers in there...I could smell this all day. The taste, however, was all over the place. First of all, it’s nowhere near as hoppy as I thought, with a heavy grain taste and some sweet malt overpowering the hops. And there was an unexpected alcoholic burn, which was odd for a 7.5% brew. The last few sips, however, tasted more balanced, as the hops came back and started to win the battle with the grain and malt. It’s real oily and carbonated on the tongue too. I don’t know--a near perfect beer on looks and smell, but the flavor didn’t follow through. I’m going to have to try again to see if the real flavor will raise its hand.

Hazy amber pour with a large, sticky, glass-coating off-white head. Aroma blends grapefruit hops and caramel malts in about equal measure. In the mouth, the hop bitterness is more present than the hop aromas, despite the caramel-vanilla malt backbone. But a resinous nutty component balances it. Medium to full body, very creamy mouthfeel.

Bottle. Pours amber with a medium white head. Aroma is citrus and flowers. This is hoppy tasting, but not very bitter. I like the hop flavor, nice citrus. Good amount of malt, seems similar to Hopalicious in that regard. Somewhat thinner than I would’ve expected for an IPA, but that makes it very drinkable. I’ve been looking forward to this one for a while. Decent, I can see this becoming a regular for me.

Ballistic has a golden color w/ moderate hop aroma and flavor. Nothing about the hops is overpowering including the flavor which is perfectly balanced by the abundant smooth maltyness which caresses the insides of the mouth. The high ABV (7+) is noticeable only by the warm feeling and happy thoughts that won’t fail to come cascading in waves minutes after finishing a pint of this beauty. You can tell by counting the foam rings on your glass how many sips it took to finish this one; the head never disappears. This is truly a beautiful IPA and is perhaps the best of the hoppy beers from Ale Asylum, 1 of the Midwest’s premier breweries. Ballistic is like Two Hearted Ale on steroids! My only criticism is that Ballistic is perhaps a tad maltier than one might expect from an IPA, but that never stopped me from loving a highly hopped beer. This is a beer not to be missed.