Cricket Hill Hopnotic IPA

Brewed by Cricket Hill Brewing Co.
Style: India Pale Ale (IPA)
Fairfield, New Jersey USA

on draft, my least favorite of the cricket hill line but still a drinkable beer. light golden with a rather big off white head. Aroma is of grain, malt, floral hops. Taste: citrusy slightly bitter, could use some more malt backbone and more hops....but this is an english interpretation. hmmmm......

This wasn’t very bitter for an IPA except for a residual hop flavor I detected in the aftertaste. It is a pretty smooth beer with a small body and moderate carbonation. There are some citrus flavors which reminds me almost of a summer wheat. It worked well with yesterday’s 80 degree day so it makes a great session/summer beer but doesn’t offer anything more to blow me away. A keg of this wouldn’t be bad.

(12 oz bottle: Obtained 06-May-06 in trade with Otter, thanks Jeremy!) Okay, my first impression is that this is a pretty odd IPA. First off, it smells grainy and oddly like sweet lychees, but not really what I’d call hoppy. The beer tastes sweet, orange citrusy, and very fruity, but the malt base is very grainy and is too reminiscent of cheap beer to me. Also, it’s hoppy and lightly bitter with the dominant hops flavor being grapefruit rind. Medium bodied with modest crispness and average carbonation. Medium-golden in color and slightly hazy. The smallish, off-white head settles to a wide ring and leaves some patchy lacing on the glass. An okay, easy-drinking beer, but it’s not at all what I look for in an IPA. It’s way too grainy, and then throwing in the fruitiness and sweetness, the hops just don’t stand out.

12oz bottle: Pours to a medium amber with a small white head that somewhat quickly dies. The aroma is some light bready malts, sweet grains, and hints of grassy hops. Taste is very mild grassy hops, pine, sweet grains, and some syrupy bready malt. It’s definitely lacking the hop department - in bitterness, aroma, and flavor. Medium bodied, medium carbonated, finishes lightly bitter and sweet. My bottle was just starting to show hints of being infected, definitely not enough for the average person to even notice, but there were just some light hints of offending yeast/bacteria in the background.

Bottle sampled with Stegosaurus. Pours dark amber with a medium head, the smell is good, the taste is decent, this beer is hoppy and has a little bite, drinkable.

Looks great and inviting, but this IPA is quite bland and thin-bodied. The hops are very mild and there is something very metallic in the finish that I find unpleasant. Some breadiness/biscuity notes, and mildly herbal.

Tap at Barcade - a pretty boring beer - some grassy, piney aroma, but not much else - the flavor is more that of a highly-hopped pils than an IPA - weak malt presence - probably a good BBQ beer, but there are much better ones to spend your money on.

Not a very impressive IPA, copper color, thin & bubbly white head, a little bit of lacing around the glass, hints of grass & citrus in the nose, medium-light body, balanced pretty decently but not all that much hops in the body of flavors, the hops don’t really come through until the finish, a little hint of orange & citrus in the flavors as well, average drinkability but just not all that great overall