Dark Horse Crooked Tree IPA

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

Golden in colour, translucent, smooth and tasty! I would like another for sure. Like others I got a real pine flavour.

Bottle pours a hazy light amber color with a thick white head that lasts forever. Smells like I just tripped into a pile of pine needles. Medium mouthfeel leads to a hop blast. I feel like I’m chewing on hop resins as I drink this. Laces the entire glass. Hop-heads rejoice!

I think that this is the most flavorful IPA brewed in the state. It’s full body lasts and you know you are drinking a real beer.

Pours amber-orange haze with lots of lacing. Excellent grapefruity taste. Feels thick to the lips when drinking it. Lots of sediment, a great beer anytime.

Pours a very cloudy dark copper color with a one-finger head that took a few minutes to dissipate. Sticky lacing down the glass. Aroma was rather mild, but primarily earthy hops of the pine/floral variety. Taste is fantastic. Perfect blend of pine, floral and citrus hops with excellent matly sweetness. One of my top two IPAs. Very drinkable. If I had bought a six pack, I probably would have drank 3 or 4 at the minimum on a nice warm early spring evening at the grill.

Bottle purchased in December 2005 and consumed July 2006.
A little bit of age has made this stunningly admirable. Lovely, semi-hazed and dull caramel-orange in color with a resplendently clinging khaki tinted head. Aroma suggests all that’s beautiful and right in this world - sugar sprinkled ruby red grapefruit, papaya rind, crisp mango butter, pulpy oranges smeared on pine branches and a freshly cut, wet spring grass abatement. Huge flavor force. Spicy caramel, pine and bittersweet grapefruit surplus. Peach and cream cheese danishes give a fruity-bready combo that’s simply delectable. Rounded, thorough malt backbone. Wholesome clementine and apricot lightness amidst the chewy caramel ribbon, with an ever-so-slight hint of butter pecan. Perfect carbonation and a semi-oily duality meet blissfully mid-mouth for indescribable sensations. Moderate bitterness adheres and abates citrus flavored corn flakes and piney-orange Fanta-esque flavors. A+.

On tap at the brewery, July 2005.
Unfiltered, pale orange with a modest white head. Aroma rules: grapefruit, nectar, botanical gardens and lemon grass. Nice smooth hop bouquet. Sweet honey accents fuel a fresh cut grass persona to make this a staple of the style. Bitter, absent of other flavors, finish.

Hazy orange color with some floaties and a big long lasting off white head. Aroma of citrus hops and tootsie rolls. Flavor of citrus hops, black pepper and tootsie rolls.

Murky mega cloud of caramel orange, yellowy peach skin glows around the edges and a tornado of chunks whirling about which finally collects at the bottom with fish food sized chunks. The head is just as impressive, perfectly foamed, firm, steady, evenly bubbled, large and in charge with the hue of vanilla ice cream. Lacing sits around in thick rings and gluey globs. I almost didn’t want to drink it, it looked so perfect. But skip that - sniff and wiff, sip and ahhhh, wow, what a nice IPA this is. Great hop nose to begin things off, super fine pine wood delicately lays atop freshly green but dried leafy hops, which has a good touch of floral aspects to it which add a layer of floral hop resin. Seemingly overall - pine wood and floral resins, but yet there’s a bit more to it with some squeezed in citrus acidicness lightly coalescing. Very aromatic in its strength as well. Flavors don’t disappoint, nice hop character throughout, toasty malt front mixing with light burnt citrus. It keeps a drying effect right from the get go. Solid resin coating with dotted alpha acids, pine wood, cedar bark, slight citrus and a very nice bittering action from front to back. Not overly complex so much in the flavors, but solidly built with a hoppy foundation. The malts play very secondary with some toasty grains which help add some nice balance and play to the biterness. Good hop action kept it going. Feel is quick and smooth in the front, close to medium bodied, fluffy texture midway into the end where it finishes with dry and steady hop-action bittering. This did seem to change some as it went along, starting strong but leveling off and weakening, more or less, as ya get closer to the bottom in both feel and flavor. Still one very well done IPA, a bit one dimensional overall, but for me the overall core and soundness of hops engaged me to like it more so then most. Yum!