McEwans India Pale Ale

Brewed by John Smiths (S&N, Heineken)
Style: Bitter
Tadcaster, England

Canned- Pours a copper body with a beige and somewhat dirty looking head. Aroma is sour, somewhat malty, and bready. Taste is sour apples, malt, and yeast. Certainly not an IPA, but I’d still rather have this than other macro swill. Only strange thing is how they got a sour apple taste into an "IPA". For this reason I can’t rate higher.

Dark brown with a huge head. It smells soapy and tastes like malt vinegar and worcestshire sauce with nuts. I’m surprised it’s called an IPA. It’s not!

This beer sucks. It’s a Eurotrash version Bass clone and I hate Bass. There’s nothing about this that tastes like an IPA. Fuck this beer.

Somewhat flat carbonation. Bitter, lingering aftertaste. A little too watery and flat for me, though. Flavor is also a little flat and bitter through the whole sip. Wateray immediately at first, but bitter flavor kicks in. Slightly grassy aroma.

Definately not my favorite IPA, but a decent experience. McEwans pours a dark amber color and hardly has a head to speak of. The aroma of the beer is where the true treat is: sweet and nutty. The taste, however, is exactly what you’d expect: sweet, watery and overall fairly bland. Carbonation is almost perfect, but overall this beer is pretty weak as far as IPA’s go.

The foam is white, medium-thick and dissolves fast. The beer is quite dark amber-brown in colour. Its smell is sweet with notes of walnuts and metal. The carbon dioxide is rich but not too aggressive. The taste is sweet with some bitterness and lots of body. The dominating flavours are diacetyl-caramel and scorched bread, dried apples and some hazelnut. Aftertaste is dry and short with some distant notes of bitter almond. Yes, I consider this ale as the standard Scottish ale. Others may be more interesting, but this is they are to be measured by.

Well, this beer was fairly disappointing. Kinda watery and bland, with a possible hint of caramel. Really, not much to say--it was rather forgettable and I can’t say I recommend it, even on tap.

Dark brown pour with a quickly diminishing head. Aroma is very malty, with barely a whiff of hops. Very thin body. More malt in the taste, with hops making a quick appearance in the finish. When I drank this IPA, I thought of a Sam Smith IPA, which is pretty malty as well. Difference is, this brew lacks the body to satisfy my tastes. If you’re gonna do a weird take on something like an IPA, there had better be something else going on. Unimpressive but drinkable.