Coast Range Calcutta 420

Formerly brewed at Coast Range Brewing Co.
Style: India Pale Ale (IPA)
Gilroy, California USA

This IPA pours a medium orange color from a 22oz bottle. Medium sized white foamy head. Aroma is piney and a touch grassy. A medium bodied IPA, Malts are fruity and sweet. Hops are piney and a touch citrusy grapefruit. Kind of earthy and way more in the English style of an IPA. It has that must earthiness thing down fairly well. Nice balance. One in a series of ‘seasonal IPA’s’. Wonder what that means? Mouthfeel is full. Finish is clean and crisp. Aftertaste is slightly bitter.

22 oz bottle from BevMo La Jolla. Pours clear maple color with a fluffy beige head that diminishes mostly yet leaves nice lace. Aroma is light toasty malts, a little honey with floral and herby hoppiness giving an earthy quality. Flavor improved greatly for me as it warmed, with the malt sweetness becoming more pronounced in balance to the predominant earthy and herby hops, flavors include subtle summer fruits, light malt sweetmess, a ’dustiness’ that I tend to associate with European hop varieties, bitter and astringent herbs like lemongrass and a bit of musty earth and grapefruit rind in the finish. Not my favorite flavor profile. Medium body and pleasant carbonation. Not bad, but I’ll let DarkElf buy the rest of the new stock at this store.

Rating #2 Bottle (5 3 4 2 7). I tried it again a few days later. This is not a good or even drinkable beer. It tastes like rotting grass. Rating #1 Bottle (5 3 5 3 9). An amber color (slightly hazed) with a yellow tan head. A malty aroma and a rather painful flavor of plastic, cardboard, dead grass, and very earthy. Where are the bright hops and wonderful flavors?

Golden amber huye, with a medium sized fluffy white head. Grassy, floral hop notes with a tinge of plastic phenol and an underlying grainy maltiness in the aroma. Earthen, musky interplay between the slightly toasty grain bill and muted hops. More plastic phenolic tinges marr an otherwise excellent balance. Gristy texture, especially in the finish. Mouthfeel is medium and rather dry.

(22 oz bottle: $3.49 at BevMo in La Jolla, CA) So, I really like the beers Coast Range makes for their own label, but I’m finding that they all have a similar malt bill, at least in how it tastes. It’s very grainy and fairly sweet, and even for this seasonal IPA, the grainy maltiness is quite prominent. It also has a pretty obvious saltiness to me. Hops has presence for sure, and it’s mildly grapefruity, but it’s only moderately bitter, and barely able to balance the strong graininess. Mind you, I’m not complaining or trashing this beer, I’m thoroughly enjoying how tasty this is, it’s just not a typical West Coast IPA. Likewise, the nose is extremely grainy, with earth and pine needles not too far behind. Medium bodied, it has the most chalky mouthfeel I can recall in a beer, especially in the finish. Slightly hazy, light amber in color, and topped by a small, off-white head that settles out to a thin, but complete layer. Lacing is negligible. I have to admit, my first taste and whiff had me wrinkling my brow, wondering if the beer was spoiled or something, but it didn’t take long for me to see the error of my initial judgment. Very tasty, very enjoyable, and nicely balanced. Tomorrow, I’m gonna go clean out all the remaining bottles at BevMo.

Smells like a pine and grapefruit tree forest. Flavor was... Sooooooo hoppy! This was a good one. Just the right amount of bitter/sweet, without overdoing it. Coast range is making some fine brews.

Moderate & rapidly diminishing head. Deep amber color. Perhaps and odd thing to say, but being odd I don’t mind - had I not bought this myself in San Fran and read the label saying this was from California I would have guessed this was from the south or east as it just doesn’t have the fresh hop character I’ve come to know. It does have bitterness, but not the floral, citrusy presence. Not bad, but lacking a balance by a degree and I’m too off kilter to know which way I think it should lean so I would like it more.

A differnt IPA from anything I’ve tried. Looks and smells like any other, but the taste is what differentiates this one. Good balance of hops and malt, but with an overtone of peat and pine. Almost a smoked malt flavor, but in IPA form. Very enjoyable.