Highland Imperial Kashmir India Pale Ale

Formerly brewed at Highland Brewing Company
Style: Imperial/Double IPA
Asheville, North Carolina USA

Thanks to Uncle Jedi. Pour is a murky brownish amber. Tiny white head. Aroma of floral, citrus and pine. Balanced nicely...hops upfront with the malt showing in the middle and finish. Medium body and creamy.

Pours a clear burnished gold color with some bronzed orange hues. Fluffy head leaves plenty of lace. Resinous pine in the aroma, the flavor, and the aftertaste. Sweet citrusy IPA feel is battered about by the overwhelming pine. Hot fiery alcohol burn. Boisterous. Prickly pepper finish. Pine, pine, and more pine. Needs to sit and calm down?

Excited when purchased @ $10. Pours an amber with a medium head. Sharp floral smell. Something went wrong. It could be the hops or sweetness, but this brew doesn’t blend very well. The finish is sour compared to a sweet bitter. Nothing smooth about this beverage.

A decent IPA but is it a double? Had most of the standard flavors , I did not find the alcohol oppressing.

Thanks to Ross for this one. Pours turbid deep coppery with 2-finger off-white head. Aroma of bready caramel malt, tropical fruit, hops, peppery and mango notes. Tastes piney hoppy, with pineapple, tangerine, black and Bell pepper, and bready malt plus some floral finishing notes. Gets a tad hot as it warms, and stays extremely hoppy throughout.

Bonus bomber from the generous NachlamSie. Thanks! Nice bottle cap of a Scottish dude with bagpipes...keeper. Pours with a small head of small bubbles that fades to an awesome microbubble veil on the surface. Amber color becomes cloudy only after I pour the yeast goodies in from the bottom of the bottle. Nice hoppy aroma. Sweet and delicious with the alchohol well hidden. Hop bitterness is mild and hop aroma is above average. The hops used are really wonderful. Not so much west coast grapefruit hops, but a little different fruit. What’s with all of these sad 3.5 faces? I thought it was very good! 4.1!

Clear orange/amber color with a rather large white head. Lace sticks to the glass the whole way down. Pineapple and tangerine in the aroma with some faint pine. Tangerine and peach in the flavor is rather nice but there is a rather boozy finish that I’m not very fond of. The heat at the end of this brings the score down a notch or two but I could see this one settling down a tad in a month or two.

Bomber. I had this a couple of days after its release and was rather underwhelmed. For some reason I was under the impression IIPA’s had a significantly strong hop profile. I waited a couple weeks to open another bottle and now am retrying it. The pour is red with a pretty nice tan head. More hops are noted in the aroma than I recall with distinct pine and grapefruit but it’s not very intense. A heavy caramel, berry sweetness is also noted. The mouthfeel is rather dense with heavy amounts of malt and the 10.2% is masked impeccably. The hops are definitely second fiddle in the taste. The flavor profile is mostly comprised of sweet caramel, dough, and a barleywine-like toffee flavor with a far off peatiness in the finish. Small suggestions of berries are noted. The hops just can’t compete with the intensity of the malt on this one, they only dry out the finish a bit. The first time I cracked open a bottle, I was very disappointed because the label touts extreme hoppiness. This second time with a different mindset, I enjoyed it a bit more. The main problem is that the sweetness was probably intended only to balance the hop flavors, but somehow became the most evident flavor. This brew lacks some of the complexity of their intentionally maltier brews like Imperial Gaelic or Tasgall. [Bomber split with Muenster on Oct. 20] Okay, so here we are again. I still don’t get any assertive hop qualities and the malts definitely dominate. I noted a heavier cotton candy or candy vanilla presence this time around.