Great Waters Anchorhead IPA

Brewed by Great Waters Brewing
Style: India Pale Ale (IPA)
St. Paul, Minnesota USA

Poured a hazy peach/amber color with a very large clump of white soapsuds-like foam. Excellent lace throughout the pint. Light citrus smell. Good tasting, citrussy IPA - hops like grapefruit. Quite bitter (in a nice way), with more grapefruit in the aftertaste. Medium-bodied, it could have used just a hair more malt complexity, but still very very tasty. Exceptionally smooth carbonation, very creamy - I really liked that part of the beer. A lot.

A titch hazy, with a deep amber glow and colors from the yellow spectrum arrayed in the glass. Good dense head and a clean line on the body. Lovely fresh pine aroma and the essence of Walt Disney World in the air. The cask gives it a nice smooth palate. The bitterness is timid and beautiful. I had a really impressive visit to the Great Waters after visiting a number of times a few years back. (cask conditioned and handpulled at brewpub)

Tap @ brewpub. Rich golden color with a foamy light brown head. Floral and wonderfully hopped with pine. I was very impressed by both IPAs (this and the Imperial IPA) for their balanced attack.

Very appealing peachy color in this IPA, with a lush white head, a flurry of cascading, cask-driven activity. Nose is very inviting, hoppy, redolent with fruity notes, pineapple, citrus, and pine. Lively and attractive. Much less bitterness appears on the palate, as well as less flavor than I’d anticipated, but this is still tasty. Lacks the kind of bite I prefer in an IPA, and is ultimately all about smoothness. Cask-conditioning makes for a very creamy mouthfeel, and while it easily slips past the lips, it’s not a very memorable representative of the style. (Although I’ve had 3 pints in the past week, what can I say, I’m just an IPA kind of guy!)

Again...I’m not a huge IPA fan....but I still thought this a very good beer....and it’s due credit....Dark Amber Coloring. Thick Head. Fruit...pineapple? Hops...Worth getting again.

On Cask: After seeing the ratings for this brew at what I have considered an ify brewpub (in terms of beer quality) I decided to make an unlikely jaunt to try out this beer. Not bad. Not up to snuff either, in my opinion. Maybe I’m just spoiled with Town Hall’s offerings, but I found this to be better than their usual products, but still lacking. The nose was almost present and the flavor, as is unfortunately the case with most of their casks, seemed watered down. The flavor never bursts forth from the glass like, say, with the Masala Mama IPA from Town Hall. It came across as a very floral Pale Ale. The hops were too soft for me. I wanted to like this more, but was underwhelmed...again.

Cask. Dark amber color and very cloudy. The white head is about an inch thick and just refuses to depart. Aroma is tempting: slight hops, some citrus, and other floral notes. The taste was great. Full of hops and flowers, grass, lemon... there is a small bit of malt character on the end. The mouthfeel was ludicrous; sweet, slipery, velvet... One of the best IPAs I’ve ever had. I think I need to make a run back there before it goes away for the season.

On-cask: Stained coppery amber color with a dusty whitish firm crown about a finger high, amazing staying power. It lurks on top ever present and soupy with a creamed look leaving lacing in lots of webby stickings. Aroma is pretty nice, good hop nose of dryish leafy hops that nudges some lemon citrus but grapefruit zest and touches of peach really seem to dominate over a light toasty malt backing. More of a melon and tame orange dominates in some areas. Good tasting IPA here, complexing hop profile with grasses, resin, grapefruit, peach, solid Cascade bittering with a nice piney twinge. Kinda zippy, has a good mouthfeel and punch with a clean, full, and sorta fluffyness to its body. Solid hop bittering and a toasted malt backing keeping a decent balance for some good warm weather drinking. Another nice "new" brew from Great Waters. I’ll be looking forward to more cask offerings from this new brewer. Keep em coming!