Metolius Dolly Varden India Pale Ale

22oz bottle which costed me around $3.75 at Jewel- kind of expensive. Pours a med amber color with a medium head thta disappears fast. A bitter flavor with a hint of olive maybe

22 oz bottle via Fred Meyer. Pours a near clear amber with an average head. Nose is herbal and grassy. Taste starts with some tea, then some grainiess, some lime, and finishes with some grassy hops and bitter orange rind. Astringent finish and aftertaste that leaves some metallica on the tongue. Below average IPA that gets you exactly what you expect from this brewery.

22. Pours a hazy burnished mediumamber with a dense, surging tannish head that doesn’t hang around for very long. Mild peachy citrus nose. Creamy medium body, a little slippery, not much carb showing. Peaches, caramel, graham crackers, and a little bit of sweet tang that’s hard to place on the mid-palate. Tastes kinda like an IPA kit rather than a recipe somebody worked to perfect. Mild peachy finish.

22 oz bottle @ Jewel. Pours amber with a decent size off white head. Decent citrus aroma. Nice bitter flavor, but a little mello. Decent brew though.

12 oz. bottle. Loose bottle rack at Jewel, Downers Grove. With this rating, I hit 64 different beers in one month, surpassing Nov. 2007 as my Best Beer Month Ever!™ Pours a gold to amber IPA color under a foamy cream-colored head. Smell seems to bring in both English earthy hops and American citrus. Taste bears a firm hop pine start. Needs a little more malt to back this one up, though. American hops build up more as I go further in. I’m surprised to say this needs to be more than just a blast of pine and bitterness. Yet another IPA with a fish on the label. How two-hearted of them! (And apparently, the trout originally named Dolly Varden in the 1870’s, probably went extinct in the river where it was first named.

My Bottom Line:
Resinous hops thrive atop lightly breaded caramel malts in this simple but efficient India Pale Ale.

Further Personal Perceptions:
-A sheet of foam covers the misty light amber.
-The resinous hop bitterness is lengthy even though the hop presence is not too talkative in the flavor profile.
-The malts offer some subtle biscuit notes too.
-I didn’t get anything wrong in this bottle, so I don’t really understand the very low marks.

Bottle.

Bomber. A very average IPA. The low price ($1.50) was the only saving grace. Not great, but not terrible either. Drinkable.

This would make for a decent Amber Ale. We don’t feel this qualifies for an IPA.