AleSmith YuleSmith (Summer) India Pale Ale

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

Bottle, split with NachlamSie and Tronraner. Pours hazy gold with a fluffy off-white head. The aroma is very fruity, tons of grapefruit, citrus, sweet cane sugar, and caramel malts. The flavor is a bouquet of citrus, grapefruit, pear, caramel, and a hint of lemon. Finishes spicy and a little warm. Revisit 9/7/08 Pours hazy orange with a big off-white head, mostly lasting. As it slowly dissipates, nice lacing is revealed. Aroma is huge hops, classic west-coast style (lots of pine, resin, grapefruit, cannabis) with a dark perfume-y sweetness (not like church-lady perfume at all though) Flavor is bursting with hops, even more than the aroma leads on. The most amazing thing is the balance. Nothing stands out as out of place at all, yet almost any of the numerous flavors from hops can be detected. The finish is nice and bittersweet, but still rather aggressive. Mouthfeel isn’t too thick, but this beer feels really big, almost like the fullness in the flavor creates something you could bite into. I really liked this beer before, but I am even more impressed on this re-visit!

poured a hazy orange with a thick white head. very sweet (caramel and warthers orginals) and hoppy aroma, citrus, grapefruit. tasted VERY sweet, need a little more hop flavor and bitterness to balance it out. still delicious with a great smooth mouthfeel and a slightly sweet finish. pretty good but could use a little better balance.

Bottle (650ml - 2006 vintage). Rating #1800. Cloudy deep orange, huge fluffy-fizzy off-white head. Huge hop aroma, citrus and funky-herbal, spruce, resin - quite a medley, but also a massive juicy malt backbone - near perfect to my nostrils. Taste follows right on, hop medley, solid malt, pretty solid alcohol, all shifting and mixing to a medium length balanced juicy finish - the hops never overwhelm, but they’re there in quantity. Pretty solid body, nice astringency and carbonation, nice ear-tingling alcoholic body, long hop linger, but again, not overwhelming, just ... solid. Awesome I2PA - I prefer (slightly) the winter version because of the bigger malt profile, but this is pretty awesome too!

Bottle from realale420. Pours mahagony with a patchy and rocky off-white head, edgy. Aroma is huge hops (pine, floral and citrus), caramel nutty lightly roasted malt (biscuit), yeast (sour dough) and a perfume alcohol nose. Heavy bitterness, moderate acidity, malt and yeast flavor is overpowered by the hoppy flowers, citrus bite and pine sweetness. Medium bodied, fizzy and dry palate.

Red and Blue bottle. I always thought this was a mix of an IIPA and a BW. A heavy citrus aroma, clings to the glass with lots of malts. A thicker mouthfeel than most IIPA’s, good hop bite with a decent amount of caramel sweet malts. Distinctive.

As I spend time in France and Belgium I often feel an urge to revisit styles such as the IIPA upon my return to America. Though experience tells me that these hoppiest of beers are decidedly unfit for my palate, I find myself momentarily craving their quixotic flavor after a consecution of graceful efforts. YuleSmith was to be just that, a sacrifice to appease my palate, and remind myself why I so often dismiss the entire style. As my first taste of AleSmith (courtesy of FlacoAlto), my expectations were logically clashing by virtue of the brewer’s revered status and my apathy towards IIPAs. The beer amazes upon my delicate pour, revealing a brooding pumpkin hue packed with a dusty yellow cake which proceeds to metamorphose into what seems a feudal citadel circumscribed by its appropriate trench and barricaded in thick lace. The nose is initially dominated by rich mango nectar and juicy aromas of orange and pineapple. Biscuity malts, characterized by burnt butter and an alcoholic cedar quality perform as the primary base for an exciting array of scents including black pepper, coriander, ginger, spruce and a hint of grapefruit. Hops are evident in the aroma, but attain their full potency on the tongue beside prominent coriander, caramel malts and café au lait. The flavor appears rich at first, building to a creamy apex before a generic hoppy and spicy burn emerges to clumsily seal the palate in an inevitable bitterness. An appeasing apple flavor appears in the aftertaste, but I found the finishing tones rather disappointing. Nonetheless, YuleSmith is to me one of the most enjoyable examples of the style and an excellent introduction to AleSmith’s potential.

Nice sweet aroma. Slightly cloudy yellow with decent head. Very balanced but lots of hops still. Really good imperial IPA. Alesmith continues to impress.

22oz bomber pours a golden yellow with a thick fluffy head. Although not as fresh as I like my IPAs, still a really nice light floral hop aroma with orange citrus and malt. A smooth texture on tongue lots of orange zest, grapefruit, citrus, a little carmel, and overall just a really nice hop profile dancing on the tongue with a fruity and malt sweetness. This slips into a light warming alcohol with a light bitter finish. Very nicely balanced, a well done IIPA.