Elysian Avatar Jasmine IPA

Brewed by Elysian Brewing Co.
Style: India Pale Ale (IPA)
Seattle, Washington USA

Bottle, New Belgium brewed version. Head is initially small, frothy, off-white, mostly diminishing. Body is light amber. Aroma is moderately malty (toasted grain, cereal, husks), lightly to moderately hoppy (apricot, grapefruit). Flavor is moderately sweet, lightly acidic, lightly bitter. Finish is lightly to moderately sweet, lightly acidic, moderately bitter. Medium body, syrupy/watery texture, lively carbonation, lightly alcoholic. Jasmine? Really? Where? It’s hoppy, sure, but more in a fruity, not flowery, way and there’s no evidence of actual jasmine flowers to my nose (I enjoy jasmine green tea from time to time, so I’m fairly familiar with the odor). Might be New Belgium’s fault, as I’ve never had the Elysian-brewed version to compare with. In any case this bottle is a sticky sweet pale ale (IPA? not so much) that fails to impress in any notable way. Rough malt character. Below average.

Bottled. Clear golden color, short head. Aroma of flowery hops, some malt, bit floral. Bit flowery taste with the bitterness. Ok.

Bottle@UDRM. Tnx JBrus! The aroma is flowery/jasmine. Clear, golden coloured beer with a thin head. The taste is bitter with the flowery jasmin. Medium bodied. Quite nice.

Bottle @ tasting by jbrus. A clear golden colored beer, with an off white head. The aroma is sweet with some bitter. There are hops and fruits, like orange. Some flowery. The taste is sparkling. It’s bitter with sweet, fruits, flowers and some spices. The aftertaste is dry with bitter and notes of sweet.

Bottle@Home. Jasmine aroma. Hazy, yellow colour, off-white head, good lace. Sweet, bitter, grassy, jasmine, fruity. Sticky mouth feel. The jasmine is out of ordinary but not annoying. I like that but 66cl was too much.

(bottle - 22 oz) Golden color with a fizzy white head. Flowery and hoppy aroma at the beginning with a very light hint of jasmine. Was expecting a bit more. Flavor has a mild jasmine beginning mixing with some nice floral and biter hops. A smooth bitterness comes through in the middle with a crisp and lightly malty finish. Not overloaded with jasmine as I kind of hoped it would be.

Gold pour. Light head. Floral hops lead the way with some citrus backing as well. The jasmine flowers are an odd addition. I would have never guessed what I was tasting, but I don’t think i really liked it. It just didn’t seem to meld with the hops right. Some caramel malt balanced this one a little.

As an assiduous drinker of jasmine tea, I was expecting Elysian’s Avatar Jasmine IPA to be both profoundly familiar and profoundly revolting. It’s never a flavor whose manifestation into beer I opined on, publicly or privately. Somewhat surprisingly, and maybe even mercifully, jasmine is nowhere to be found - not in the aroma, and not in the taste. Rather, the aroma substitutes with a very faint and pale scent of sweet flowers, orange, and clove honey. I might even revise the description to add a bit of tangerine or mikan into it. The flavor is also on the sweeter, lighter, and more delicate side. Tangerine and clementine foil against some hops bitterness, before these exterior flavors thin out a bit and let more of that IPA bitter core show through. It then lightly ballets across the tongue on tip-toes before making a quick, quiet dive down the gullet. It’s a light, approachable beer, and would make a great substitute for Lindemann’s, which seems to be the gold standard for new and curious drinkers of “higher class” brews. But do be warned that, to this palate at least, there’s no real jasmine to be found.