Mill Street IPA

Brewed by Mill St. Brewery
Style: India Pale Ale (IPA)
Toronto, Canada

[089-20061104] Tap @ Mill St. (Toronto, ON). Hoppy aroma. Dark orange body with a quick creamy white head. Flavour is hoppy, a bit floral and grainy yeast, lightly ascerbic. Medium body is not smooth. Overall, good.

Draught. Dark amber-copper body with a white soapy head. Aroma of pineapple, oranges, bread, and butterscotch. Not really assertive in the least for an IPA. Full malt component but the hop bitterness fails to shine through. It’s very easy to drink though it’s pretty bland and I can’t see a reason to drink much of it. Tasted at the brewpub on January 5, 2007.

Draught at the brewpub. Poured a amber colour with a small head. A solid IPA, I would have liked it to be a little more hoppy.

Draught at the brewpub. Copper amber body, with a small off white head. Strong hop aroma is lightly minerally and earthy. Similar flavour to the aroma, fairly bitter with notes of earthy green hops with some well balanced supporting malt. Average palate. A very solid English style IPA, but it is not super exciting and makes me wonder why bother when they already make the Tankhouse which is in similar territory, albeit leaning more towards the American style of hopping. Looking at the other ratings it seems to be all over the map as to whether or not there is citrus mentioned... Hmmmm... Maybe they are tweaking the recipe?

Draught at the Mill St. Brewpub, shared with VeloVampire - copper in appearance with a nice, creamy white head. Smells hop-citrusy with other light fruity notes playing about. Flavour is nicely rounded citrus on top, quite floral and really nice, followed but a significantly long bitter finish. Definitely a good IPA, and judging from the early reviews here, it would seem like they’ve been tweaking and improving the recipe. This was definitely not malty in the least, and quite different from the Tankhouse - less piney, grassy...brighter, with more flowery. Lovely. Put this in bottles, Mill Street Man!

Okay. I had this again at the brewpub, and it was absolutely identical to the Tankhouse Ale. So I don’t know what’s going on...perhaps they accidentally tapped the Tankhouse instead? No idea. But the first time I had it, it was an individual beer, on the way to becoming a great IPA. This time...Tankhouse. What’s up?

On tap at Mill St. Brewpub, shared with StompBrockmore - came a clear copper shade, pretty dark for an IPA, but looked nice anyway. Aroma very citrusy, but with some other fruitiness that I couldn’t quite place......melon? Who knows. Very flavourful, again, more citrusy hops, but light seeming, especially for the alcohol percentage. Not enough hop punch in this one. An enjoyable brew, but far too similar to the superior Tankhouse to call this a unique offering. Toss in a few more kilos of hops and then call it an IPA - until then, Tankhouse-lite.

Pint at the pub. Put my numbers in and, lo and behold, the average score 3.2. This had a reasonable assertiveness but lacked some identity. The aroma is not really defined. It tastes more or less IPA-hoppy, but not hop-happy. I enjoyed it but it rarely distracted me from my conversation. It was okay, well-made beer that MS still need to tweak to be a classic like Tankhouse or Coffee Porter. Even the Wit has gotten better but today it lacked curaçao/herbal notes and seemed more like a copy of Denison’s Weisse, a recipe which they contract brew for Michael Hancock. I say this ingenuously and without malice, the Wit was awfully similar to the Weisse today. Served with lemon wege to wit (no pun) in the Bavarian style.

Clear, dark brown w/ small ring of off-white foam. Hoppy, grapefruit aroma w/ malty notes of caramel & chocolate. Sticky feel. Big, very bitter flavour w/ firm malty foundation. Finish is dry. This is a decent beer but it was served far too cold, and this is an offense for which I will hold Mill Street responsible as it is a brewpub. It took some time for the flavours to come out.