AleSmith YuleSmith (Summer) India Pale Ale

Brewed by AleSmith Brewing Company
Style: Imperial/Double IPA
San Diego, California USA

Deep golden in color with a nice head of fine white bubbles. The nose shows off citrus and floral hops along with balancing caramel malt and an herbaceousness (from the hops). In the mouth it is medium-bodied and concentrated with nice balancing sweetness in the mid-palate which gives way to a dry/bitter finish.

Pours deep golden-orange with a nice slightly off-white head. Aroma is mainly hop citrus and floral. Great combination of hops over malt in the flavor. Good carbonation and mouthfeel. Outstanding example of West Coast DIPA.

Bottle. [thank you, Dunk]
Pours a light muddy orange amber with a beautiful, staying, off-white head. Fine lacings. Aroma is very hoppy, some clear apricot, grapefruit, pepper and pine. Wonderful creamy mouthfeel. Flavour is vinious, super hoppiness, some biscuity malts and subdued caramel. Lovely, very long, dry, bitter, fruity and hoppy aftertaste. Perhaps a touch too vinious, but still wonderful.

This years bottle, bought the day after the release and consumed a week later. A gusher. Pours with a large, rocky, ever-so-slightly off-white head covering a barely hazy, deep golden body. Some small yeast particles in the glass. Extremely impressive retention, good strong lacing. Aroma has lots of caramel, some tangy-ness, vanilla, brown sugar, and a bit of grapefruit. Taste is strongly caramel upfront that transcends to a light citrus and refreshing finish. Light carbonation and a syrupy full mouthfeel.

Orange-ish color with a white head that left decent lacing. Nose of pine, grapefruit, and some sweet caramel; but it didn’t really jump out of the glass at me. Much of the same disappointment was displayed in the taste; good flavors, but weak, especially for a DIPA. Mouthfeel was thick and fullbodied, carbonation was about medium. As it stands, the example I had was an okay beer and nothing more. Bad bottle? Perhaps, but there didn’t seem to be anything inherently wrong with it, just not impressive. Only beer I haven’t been impressed by from AleSmith. I’ll give it another try next year and go from there.

Hazy orange with a lasting off-white head. Sweet american hop aroma, peach, pine, tea and roses. Dry hoppy flavour with floral hop and some caramel malty notes. Burning hot alcohol is not so good, but the long hoppy aftertaste is good.

This one came in from fordest and since it had fireworks on the bottle, I had to give it a go on the 4th weekend. Nice trademark westcoast IPA. Would love to pair this next to the winter to see how they match up but am afraid the hops would not last the 6 months until the next batch came out. Floral and citrus aromas. Nice malt.body and not too sweet. Lovely citrus hops with it mainly on the grapefruit side of the hop spectrum.

Bomber, what could be a better beer for the Fourth of July? Pours a clear copper color with a small white head. The aroma is tons of sweet citrus like hops and some caramel. The taste is very nice; a smooth and full body, very tasty citrus and lightly bitter hops dominate, but the malt presence is strong also, a touch of orange peel and overall a smooth and very good beer.