Dark Horse Crooked Tree IPA

Brewed by Dark Horse Brewing Company
Style: India Pale Ale (IPA)
Marshall, Michigan USA

This was one of the beers that I took to to share at the Tennessee Spring(ish) Tasting in Knoxville, TN on 3/10/2007... Crooked Tree IPA has a sweet citrus and sugary caramel aroma. The color is a hazy golden orange. The pour produces a lasting, rocky, off-white/beige head that leaves some lacing. The flavor has a rich caramel maltiness and a fairly aggressive grapefruit and floral hop bitterness. The palate is medium to full and quite creamy. Crooked Tree is an impressive IPA. 12 oz bottle.

Bottle at the Knoxville Spring(ish) tasting. Pours hazy brown gold with thin beige head. The aroma is bread, citrus hops, a little bit of pine, and some birch bark. The flavory is toasty malt under some zesty, piney hops. General bitterness by the finish. It leaves a slightly bitter, woody aftertaste. Not bad.

Slightly cloudy orange, big beige head. Nice hoppy aroma, blending pine and citrus. Thin bodied, and a bit unbalanced towards the bitter, which is a good thing here. Finishes extremely sticky. Uncomplicated and very tasty.

Bottle tasted with the fine gentlemen at the Knoxville Spring(ish) tasting. Pours a cloudy copper/orange with a tall white head. There’s a heavy grapefruit aroma on this with an earthy backbone. This is a very tasteful IPA with plenty of assertive bitterness and a bouquet of citrus notes. The acidity is not uber defined, but rather works in harmony with the malts to make a solid, drinkable package. Crooked Tree is soily overall and just slightly sticky with suggestions of honey. This is very good example of what I would expect from this style.

I’ve finally picked up a single bottle of this as I’ve been wanting to try this for a long time. Pours a hazy orange color with lots of particles floating around. It’s like an IPA snow globe of sorts. Aroma is the usual citrus and grapefruit, which while nice, has nothing extraordinary about it. Taste is interesting with a big citrus hops with a peculiar malt note that is now gone from my tongue. Overall it’s a good IPA but a bit too dry to become a session IPA.

Bottle. Yummy citrus and grapefruit nose. Sweet. Cloudy particulate orange body with a beige head. Taste is a clean, very sharp bitterness, obviously from the hops, but not tasting particularly of the hops. Strange hop action here, really, attacks just the front of the tongue, and absent of resin or florality. Medium body. Dry with some faint grassiness. Aftertaste is bitter and dry. Well-made but punishing in a unredemptive way.

Thanks to Silphium for the bottle. Hazy orange with a large head. Fair lacing. Aroma of pine, oily resin and citrus. Not a lot of malt, just like the commercial description says. Bitter finish. Medium body. Slightly oily texture. Pretty good, if a bit unbalanced.

12oz bottle with no date from JCapriotti, thanks Jason. Pours a hazy orange with a two finger pale beige head. Aroma is oranges and pineapple hops, soap, and some sweet caramel malts. Flavor is some citrus hops and lightly toasty with some bread. This has a dry dirt finish. Bitterness is maybe 6-7 on a 1-10 scale. Light soft carbonation with a light to medium body. Not too bad of a beer at all.