Fish Tale Winterfish Ale

Brewed by Fish Brewing Company/Leavenworth Beers
Style: India Pale Ale (IPA)
Olympia, Washington USA

Bottle: Clear orange color with a thin white head, lemon, orange and other sweet spices in the aroma, thin bodied with light carbonation, starts lightly sweet and ends sweet with some alcohol in the ending.

12-oz. This is a nice one. Pours a clear medium amber with a thick, sudsy white head. Biggish floral and pine nose, but it’s a comparative balm after a summer of caustically resinous bunker-buster hop bills. Assertive attack; good sturdy medium body with tingly carb and forward (if not overbearing) flavors. Caramel malty sweetness emerges on the nose and the mid palate more and more as it warms a bit. Maybe too sweet there at the end, more of a clinging finish than a lingering one (after a few sips, had to knock the overall from a 14 to a 12 for this excessive sweetness). But this is a solid little IPA.

Best I’ve had in the candy winter spice class probably because of the considerable hops and citrus notes. Still too sweet for my taste.

Cold 12oz bottle: Pours a clear medium orange color with a minimal amount of small light tan bubbles around the edges of the glass. Sweet malts and floral hops with notes of caramel and orange. Crisp, medium bodied and well carbonated. Ending is dry and lightly bitter with floral notes.

Bottle.

Pours a deep orange with a modest head. Thte aroma is a blast of grapefruit candy - quite distinct, as the commercial description suggests - from the grapefruit pith that one gets from the more common cascade hops. A bit of of peach in there, a whisper of vanilla, a pleasant candied sweetness.

The flavor follows pretty much as the aroma would suggest. The chinook hops are powerful, intense, and bitter grapefruit, there’s definitely a stone-fruit candy to it and maybe just a faint salty roastiness. Unfortunately, at the tail end the hops yield to the sort of soapy flavor that tarnishes several of the Fish brews, and so this one falls short of a truly great IPA.

Nonetheless, it’s pretty good - and good enough that I went back and bought a six to follow the initial two bottles. After being disappointed with their regular IPA, APA, etc., it’s nice to see another quality beer coming from Fish.

The aroma is like grapefruit juice, apricots, and rich sugary malts. The appearance is deep golden with an amber hue. The head is large but falls fast. The flavor is extremely hoppy and malty with a strong citrus hop presence. The palate is smooth. This is one of those beers that is very good despite a lack of complexity. Nice!

Aroma of ripe citrus and a hint of malt. Amber color with a lite white head. Starts with lite grapefruit, followed by a hint of sweetness (lots of hints in this), substantial mouthfeel, ending in smooth bitterness. Grapefruit takes a back seat. Still hoppy though. Contrast SN Celebration which is a bit rough. Very drinkable.

Poured the 12oz bottle into my cozy 16oz tumbler. The brew was copper in color and had a thin off white head. The aroma was freshly cut sweet tangelo or some apricot-grapefruit combo. Pungent. Behind the sweetness also lurks the more tart grapefruitiness of the hops. Tastes a lot like it smells. The sweet grapefruit flavor is so fresh it seems like there should be a wedge of it struggling to stay afloat in the beer. As the flavor progresses the sweetness of the grapefruit becomes more tart. At the same time the light malts begins to make an appearance. But the malts appear to be just the garnish next to the hoppy main course.