Lakefront IPA

Brewed by Lakefront Brewery
Style: India Pale Ale (IPA)
Milwaukee, Wisconsin USA

Here is the problem: I like bitter hops. But dumping a ton of bitter hops into an otherwise flavorless grog just doesn’t do it for me. This has hop aroma, hop flavor, hop aftertaste, but nothing else. I mean NOTHING else. No malt, grains, or other flavors what-so-ever. Just a bottle of unbalanced hop juice. it could be worse, but should be better.

Pours a murky honey with hints of orange. Aroma flowers, grass and pine. Taste is slightly bitter with flavors of flowers and citrus with a nice molasses malt coming through in the finish. Pretty well balanced and nicely brewed.

Copper coloured body with a nice tan head that tops the beer and a very pleasant haziness to the beer that shows very well - this is what an IPA should look like! Aroma of fresh cascade hops with the big hints of grapefruit and pine - very nice. Medium-bodied; Chewy grapefruit hoppy flavours with a mild malt backbone, some kicks from caramel and grass, but mostly hoppy without a large malt backbone. Aftertaste has a lot of hops, some malt, but a good dose of herbal and grass flavours. Overall, a very nice IPA - perfect for warmer weather, and lighter drinking conditions - because the hops come out very well, but the malt isn’t there to back it up - which is good in some occasions! I sampled this twelve ounce bottle purchased from Half Time in Poughkeepsie, New York on 27-November-2009, sampled at home in Washington on 21-December-2009.

This one was just like how I like my IPAs... cheap. Marked down to 98 cents at BOTW. Small off-white head with a amber body. Aroma is sweet, grapefruit, light orange/floral. Taste is sweet, grapefruit, some caramel, lemon. Medium body, some acidity.

Bottle:   Dirty orange, opaque, moderate to large white head, foamy, nice lacing.   Citrus zest, soft pine and hops on the nose.   Quite the citrusy hop flavor on the tongue.   This one I like.   Good hop presense, not overly done.   Has a mild sweetness about it too.   Clean finish, lingering citrus hop bitterness.   Moderate to full bodied, slightly oily mouthfeel.   This is my kind of IPA.

Pours an attractive murky orange with a sufficient but thin head. Typical Centennial hop aroma of citrus and grapefruit. Familiar, but pretty drinkable. Good IPA.

Pours a hazy golden almost orange color with a big fluffy white head. Aroma is citrusy and has some notes of pine sap and just a touch of mineral oddness. Boy the aroma had me going there I really thought this would taste awesome, not that it tastes bad, in fact it’s good, just not as good as it smells. The flavor here is all kinds of grassy hops and plenty enough bitterness, with a nice caramel malty backbone. This of course sounds pretty good, but the flavor seems while hop driven just a little weak all the hops seem either solely for bitterness or just plain grassy, there just isn’t a lot of depth to the hop character on this one which is sad because it could be brilliant with just a little tweaking. There is a little bit of cloying sweetness in the malt character too, which again I normally don’t like but if there were more raw hop flavor to this one I think the malt of this one would work in very well. I would absolutely love to try this as fresh as possible to see it in its full potential. I think it’s how close this one gets to greatness but just falls short that almost makes me more disappointed than if it would have just sucked. I’m giving it a good score though because I generally like everything about this beer, it could just be so much more. Oh yeah... not a trace of that 7% shows up, I was shocked when I saw the abv.

Pours golden amber with plenty of sediment. Aroma is moderately hoppy with some spice and citrus. A little piney. Very little hop up front on flavor. A little sweet. Skunky bitterness on the back end.