Coronado Hoppy Daze IPA

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

Date: August 18, 2009
Mode: Bottle
Source: South Bay Drugs, San Diego
Appearance: hazy orange, fine white head, drippy lace
Aroma: big sweet fruity orange and tangerine aroma with nice spicy phenolics, touch of pine
Body: creamy body
Flavor: rich citrus flavor, lots of sweet orange, touch of bitter orange rind
Aroma: 7/10; Appearance: 7/10; Flavor: 7/10; Palate: 7/10; Overall: 16/20
Rating: 3.8/5.0
Drinkability: 7/10
Score: **4

Orangey-amber with slight haze. Liquorice root, pomegranate, and somewhat cherryish nose. Deep taste - almost like a dubbel with dark fruits and liquorice in a pale beer. Slightly bitter, but moderately sweet in the finish.

On tap @ Coronado. Poured a medium golden color with a small head. Aroma and tastes of flowers and hops. Nice bitterness to it. I would have expected a little more of a malt presence for an IIPA.

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!

(22oz bottle) Pours a lightly hazy orange body with a small off-white head. Complex aroma of pineapple, apricot, toasted grain, biscuit, banana, rye, light ginger, coriander, and grapefruit. Flavor of hops (pineapple, apricot, orange), caramel malt, and Belgian yeast.

Draught, two tries, both pretty different, points are an average Red amber to pale ochre with some haze under an ultra-thin head, leaving lace somehow. Banana ester, phenols, Lapsan Souchong tea and dry, ureumholding hops. First sample full of phenols, less hops, and slighlty smoked, retronasal some caramel; second sample very bitter, seriously dry and a long flowing main taste: bitter and malt cookies. Medium bodied, slightly harsh in the palate, the phenolic sample giving some caramelfeel. Strange - bit crude, and, once more, very un-Belgian.

Bomber courtesy of DarkElf. Pours copper with a white head. Smells of resin, citrus, earth, some sweet malt, doughy. Tastes of citrus, resin, dry malt, some touches of pepper, light tartness also there. Finish yields some spicy resin.

Draft at brewery in Coronado, CA: Clear gold, nose of light dry hops and some pale malts. The flavor is a bit of a let down. Some bitterness and lots of pale malt in the body but nothing holds together. Cohesion!