Mad River Steelhead Double IPA

Brewed by Mad River Brewery
Style: Imperial/Double IPA
Blue Lake, California USA

Pours a clear orangey red with a decent offwhite to greyish white head, falling quickly to a film with a few loose bubbles. The nose is well, hoppy. Big tropical fruits. Mango, pineapple, A bit of something toasty or bready. Relatively sweet, relatively light malt. A creammy full mouthfeel on this one. Smooth, with appropriate carbonation levels. The flavor is in line with the nose. Rather sweet round malt, aggressive hops. The tropical fruit aspects are certainly big, but the there’s a good deal more piny resin. Creamy. The alcohol is well hidden, though lurking beneath the surface, lending some boost to the more resinous hop flavors. A lingering herbal and pine hop bitterness. The toast is much lower. Perhaps a bit of wood, something tannic at least. Not a bad beer for what I remember the price being.

Cloudy golden-amber. Aroma fills the room - crystal malt and woody hops with hints of grapefruit, apple and dust. Thick, very chewy, no shortage of crystal malt. A biscuity note joins in, along with dull woody hops. OK, typical Cali chewiness but that mid 90s lack of brightness really hurts.

Bottle.

Orange with a small off-white head. A relatively straightforward, not over the top IIPA, only slightly sweet, not particularly remarkable or challenging.

Hazy orange color with a short lived off white head that shrank to a lasting ring. Floral purfume, orange zest and caramel candy nose. Thick, rich hoppy flavors with apricot, pineapple, grapefruit rind and a sticky sweet caramel brown sugar sweetness. Finish shows lots of alcohol and the grapefruit. Nice enough IIPA. Extra credit for being a 12 oz bottle.

Pours a fully clouded orange brown. Nice off white and crème head. Nose is a calm perfume with the hops going on. Flavor is good, but this is more of a calmer DIPA. Full flavored, yes. A hop heads dream? No. Feel is good on the liquid and it has a nice carbonation that is pretty smooth.

Bottle. Orange/pine hops aroma. Hazy orange-amber color with large head and nice lacing. Strong pine hops and sweet caramel hops flavor. Nicely blended. A pleasure to drink.

This is another shocker for me, another double IPA I fully expected to hate (since I normally don’t like IPA, particularly American style-IPAs which are less malty), but which in fact I really like. It is hazy amber with a thick, slowly dissipating off-white head and some weak lacing. The aroma is nice, complex floral hops with some malt. The taste is actually rather sweet at first, with strong floral hops up front but followed by some caramel malt before leaving a dry, slightly bitter finish. The palate at first is soft and smooth. The hops, of course, linger in the mouth. It is quite pleasant and interesting. Ironically, I find this only slightly bitter and less bitter compared to a number of regular IPAs and even regular American pale ales, etc. The flavour is, of course, very hoppy, but it is a rich floral flavour and softened by a strong, sweet malty base. I think that is a key factor, but I’m not certain.

Amber color. Invigorating hoppy aroma. Very nice mouth-feel with lingering bitterness. Not my favorite IPA but very satisfying.