Coronado Hoppy Daze IPA

Brewed by Coronado Brewing Company
Style: Imperial/Double IPA
Coronado, California USA

Bomber! Pours a hazy amber orange body with a thin bubbly head. Huge grassy vanilla spicy pine and fresh herbal hoppiness. Big and grassy with some sharp hop resins a bit like kb and sticky, sharp vine like sappiness and a light soil like mineralization. Moderate warming with more grassy hemp/bud like dryness. Wow what a beer.

Bottle… Cloudy golden ale with a mid-sized, creamy, white head. Good retention. I didn’t realize this was an American-hopped/Belgian-style IPA until I took my first sniff. Only then did I go grab the bottle and read the label more carefully. The aroma, at first, comes across as a bit medicinal. The whole Belgian yeast/American hop combination has never worked for me. At the same time, I couldn’t stop sniffing this stuff. To do so would be akin to trying to take my eyes off a high speed accident involving a school bus and a cement truck. The more I sniffed, the more this odd combination grew on me until I actually liked it. Same with the traffic accident. After the initial shock and horror at all the gore, I’m on the cell phone with everyone I know telling them the carnage that I saw… just to beat the nightly news to the punch. People are so wrong! Anyway, this beer’s bouquet is absolutely bursting-at-the-seams with American hops, spicy phenols and fruity esters. Medium-bodied with soft carbonation. Sugary, spicy flavor up front; lots of citrusy, earthy hop bitterness follows. The sweetness does win out , but not by a whole lot. Finishes bittersweet and a touch phenolic. Bottle courtesy of giarcsr. Thanks, Ryan!

Pours a nice orange, a little hazy with a thin lasting head. Aroma had a good amount of pine and grapefruit, a little bread, pale malts, a touch of booze, and some nice spicy Belgian Yeast. Up front, the flavor was a nice blast of bitterness in the form of pine, grapefruit, and pepper followed by some bready pale malts, some sweeter malts, and banana, clove, spicy esters from the yeast. A little bit of alcohol in the finish, but overall this was a pretty nice. Some spice from the yeast and herbal/piney notes from the hops were left over and lingering. Pretty solid.

Pours turbid dull gold with off-white head and spare lace. Nose is resiny hops, citrus, tangerine, pineapple, with a hoppy flavor, backed by solid malt, and a plethora of citrus fruit flavors. Well hidden alcohol in this. Starts a tad sweet but finishes hoppy and citrus fruity. This one is outstanding, and a beer that I will buy again.

Dark cloudy orange pour with floaters and a nice frothy off-head. Sticky lacing. Sweet malt, hops, grapefruit, candy sugar, resinous pine, peach. Very sweet with the hops bitterness. Good Belgain IPA, but too sweet in my opinion.

Bottle. Muddy orange pour with only a little bit of white head. Aroma is a generous amount of lemony citrus hops and a little bit of sugar. Flavor is the same, mostly just citrus hops. Sugary, but indistinct base malt. Moderately bitter finish.

22oz. Bottle: Aroma of hops, pine, grapefruit, hop oil, light tangerine, and some bready, caramelish, malts. Poured amber/orange in color with a medium-sized, creamy, dense, rocky, off-white head that lasted throughout. Cloudy. Slightly sparkling. Full of small and medium-sized particles throughout. Very good lacing. Flavor is lightly sweet and medium bitter. Tastes of hops, pine, pineapple, slight resin, light grapefruit, tropical fruit, slight Belgian yeast, and a bit of aspartame. Medium body. Creamy, oily texture. Soft to average carbonation. Light to medium bitter, lightly sweet, hoppy, pine, hop oil, resin, grapefruit, and slight caramel finish. I wish this were drier. 9%ABV is totally, wonderfully, hidden.

A solid pour into my 25cl tulip glass produces a three finger thick, pale tan colored head that leaves some lacy, lacing as it slowly subsides in a persistent, tightly beaded manner. The beer is a muddled amber color that shows a hazy, straw-gold color when held up to the light. The aroma, noticeable even as I pour this beer, is laden with fruity hop notes that are no doubt accentuated by fermentation derived esters. This smells of lychee, apricot, kumquats and even a bit of floral tropical fruit notes reminiscent of pineapple and mango. An actual inspection of the nose sees the hop fruitiness take a more citrus edge to it as well as picking up a backbone of pine needles and even a touch of herbal, almost hemp like notes to it. Toasted, pale malt character contributes a solid cracker like grain character to the finish. Honestly, other than the note when I was pouring it, the nose doesn’t seem to have a whole lot of Belgian’esque character to it.

The combination of hops and residual malt sugar contributes to this being quite a sweet seeming beer. It isn’t overly heavy though as it might even said to be fairly light for a beer of this strength. While the front of each sip is dominated by super ripe fruit notes the finish has a nice, solid bitterness to it as well as a touch of menthol like herbal hop character that lingers; neither of these two notes are huge, but do go a long way towards balancing the up front sweet flavors. Some of the menthol like notes I am realizing are actual turpene like phenolic notes of clove derived from fermentation phenols. I think that the hop fruitiness is actually accentuated quite a bit by fermentation derived esters as well, but the Belgian yeast character really plays a supporting role here; yes this is a bit different than a straight up IPA, but it is not so different as to be overtly noticeable that it was fermented with something other than a bland American Ale yeast. This is of course more a testament to the super-hoppiness of this brew rather from the use of a bland Belgian yeast strain; the Belgian character is in here, it is just drowned out by the cacophonous, palate engulfing hop character. The up front hop notes contribute flavors of tropical fruit, lychee, floral peach, orange blossom honey, super ripe tangelo, a touch of pineapple and, as the beer warms a definite note of super ripe melon and floral pear that is purely fermentation derived but still contributes to the over all tropical fruit notes that are found in this beer.

This is just a down right enjoyable brew; it has such a ripe hoppiness to it that I can’t really even find fault that the hops drown out the Belgian yeast character to a large degree. Letting the beer warm up certainly helps (the phenols in the finish become more noticeable and a herbal, slightly vegetal and grassy character is accentuated as well), but ultimately this is all about the hops (as it should be). This is dangerously drinkable for a beer of this of this strength, which is definitely requisite in my book for anything with IPA on the label. This definitely hits the spot for this oft-times hop head, and even has a bit of yeast character to keep the funky freak in me at least slightly interested.