Deschutes Hop Trip

Brewed by Deschutes Brewery
Style: American Pale Ale
Bend, Oregon USA

Hazy orange with moderate amount of medium-fine lacing. Interesting cologne-like hoppy aroma. Woody, musky, lightly citrusy compared to other American hops. Fairly sweet body with light caramel and moderate floral hoppiness. A bit sweet for my tastes. Finishes moderately hoppiness, not too much bitterness. Pleasant, but perhaps not quite up to the acclaim.

Bottle. Pours a hazy light orange amber color with a nice white head on top. Aroma is full of fresh hops, grapefruit, citrus, caramel malt, and cookie malt. It smells like a fresh hop pale ale should. Flavor is mostly fresh hops with a nice sweet citrus taste coming in afterwards. The beer also has a nice sweet malt profile with caramel mostly coming in. Not much of a bitterness except at the very beginning which is pretty mild. A nice refreshing American Pale Ale. Doesn’t come with as much of a bite as a typical IPA does.

22 oz bomber via trade with Ken. Pours a slightly cloudy orange amber color with a small white head. Aroma is of early spring floral hops and fresh tropical fruit. Taste is floral hoppy with hints of apricot,sweet red grapefruit and ruby red tangerine juice. Very nice.

Pours with a just ever so lightly hazy, reddish amber color that shows touches of copper when held up to the light. The head starts out almost at three-fingers of thickness, and is a frothy, medium sized bubbled with tan colored head. The aroma is nice and hoppy with a forward sweet citrus note that is predominantly of grapefruit. The end gets just a touch soapy, but only ever so slightly, mostly the hop fruit character continues, but becomes a bit more comprised of tropical fruit, lychee and apricot notes. Not much malt is noticeable underneath the hop aromatics. All in all the aroma has a nice, bright hop driven fruit character.

The beer is fairly dry up front, taking on a zesty, almost biting hop character that is more flavor than bitterness. Towards the middle some malt sweetness slips in and accentuates a citrus character. The beer finishes with a solid bitterness as well as a lightly herbal, sort of pine like note. The beer is much lighter in body than I was expecting. With this level of hopping I would have like to have seen a touch more fullness. Actually a bit more body and malt would have allowed the hops to more fully express themselves, but then it might not be a Pale Ale any longer. With such a light body this beer is quite quaffable, you definitely need a 22oz bottle of this beer. Lots of fruity hop flavors are here in this beer; in addition to the citrusy (bergamot, candied orange peel, ruby-red-grapefruit and tangerine) there is also softer, rounder fruit notes of apricot, lychee, and touches of tropical fruit (guava and even passion fruit play subtle roles here). The fruit notes are perhaps best balanced by the herbaceous hop notes that add a sharp biting character throughout the flavor profile.

This is definitely an enjoyable beer, but I really do feel that this would have better been cast as an IPA, with a bit more malt thrown in the mash tun; it would help to balance the ample hops that seemed to have been used here. On the other hand this beer would not be quite so quaffable at an IPA’s alcohol level.

Purchased via mail order: <a href=http://www.liquidsolutions.ws/main/>Liq Solutions

A middle of the road NW IPA... plenty of fresh hop taste and grapefruit-esque citrus power. Pours lightish amber with non-existent head. Filtered. I’d recommend as a good refreshing IPA, but not an asskicker IPA.

Bottle: Light amber, orange color with a small foamy head. Aroma is rich with citrus and grapefruit. Taste is fruity and hoppy, more citrus and a bit of cramel. Some maltiness too. Sort a wetter feel as it goes down. Nice and refreshing.

22 oz bomber. This is my favorite of all the fresh hop ales I have had this year. The balance was great. The hops smell and taste as fresh as you would expect. Very well crafted brew.

22oz bomber oddly capped with a Bell’s cap, very stragne. Beer 9 of the Bartzilla’s Death Metal Beer Tasting 1/12/2007, consumed with many great beer drinkers including Bartzilla, Naven, as well as Lee creator of Arrogant Bastard, and a really cool guy. This was good and really pretty amazing for a 5.5% abv beer. After consuming a lot of much more high octane stuff this came through strong. Lee nicely commented that if they can create something like this at 5.5 they shoudl brew it all the tiem.