McNeills Dead Horse India Pale Ale

Brewed by McNeills Brewery
Style: India Pale Ale (IPA)
Brattleboro, Vermont USA

Pours cloudy copper orange with off white head. Very active. Lots of bubbles look nice. The aroma is malty and hoppy. Cascade, grapefruit, and citrus. A very fruity hop on top of mild malts. Flavors are a sharp citrus hop, overly fruity and some alcohol after tastes. Hop bitterness does not seem ballanced enough. Lingering hop bitterness keeps you comming back, but the mix is unballanced.

This one pours turbid coppery with 2-finger off-white head. Aroma of heavy hops, fruit, caramel malt, some spicy and floral notes. The falvor is amazingly complex, with hops, fruit, florals, caramel malt, and some funky notes. Complex, wel balanced palate.

22oz bottle via trade with 46er3498 - Thanks Tom! - Pours amber and cloudy with a very short offwhite head that didn’t stay long. Aroma of light hops and some musty smell as well. Flavors of light citrus over caramel malts, some toffee notes, and a lot of bready flavors. I agree completely with the previous rater this tastes much like an English Bitter. Nothing offensive about it it just isn’t what I usually expect when I open an IPA. Low carbonation, medium body with a slight bitter finish.

Cloudy orange pour, with lots of suspended particles, and a lasting, foamy head - kind of a musty, semi-tart aroma, with a kind of earthy quality - less of an IPA and more like a hoppy, bready belgian ale - some fruity esters and bready, yeasty quality, reminding me of an english bitter, but it has the earthy, nearly tart quality of a saison - I don’t know if it’s supposed to have these tart characteristics (it’s more than likely just going bad), but I like it for some reason.

From a bomber I bought this week, I don’t know how long its been sitting there...It pours with a very large, soapy head - lots and lots of carbonation over a cloudy dark copper body. The aroma is pungent: it smells to me like stinky feet with a strange hint of sweet malts - an odd combination to be sure. There’s something very sour in the flavor and I’m beginning to wonder if this hasn’t gone off. Highly bitter with the hefty amounts of hops.

This bottle is at least 1 year old. Who knows how long it was sitting on the shelf when I picked it up in Vermont though? They never mark a freshness date on their bottles. Appearance...first of all, this beer was filled up to the cap. I’m not sure if it was meant to be, or not. The pour is an opague orange amber with a nice sized, off-white head that slowly fades out. Tons of scattered lacing is left around the glass. Smell is of honey, faded hops, mild oxidation, and caramel. Taste is slightly sour with the mentioned aromas and a very, very mild cardboard flavor bouncing around, which makes me think that the bottle was probably on the downside of it’s short lived life. Mouthfeel is sweet, medium bodied, with sweetness and a mild sour note that is faintly detected. Overall, I have a tough time getting fresh bottles from McNeill’s. It doesn’t help that I sat on it for a year but stuff happens. Well, it’s either that, or that’s just the way that they are supposed to taste.

22oz bottle shared courtesy of weeare138. Poured a medium to deeper amber color with large sized off white head. Lots of floaters. Aromas of citrus and pine. Tastes of citrus and pine with very light caramel. Very lightly sour. Bottle was 1 year old and I think we saved it from going south of the border.

Thanks to weeare138. This bottle was at least one year old. Pours a lightly hazy orange amber with a small bubbly off white head with tons of floaties. Aroma of caramel, some citurs and sweat malts. Flavor had a light bitterness, caramel and some citrus.