Russian River Blind Pig IPA

Draft: pours a cloudy light orange with a big frothy white head, hoppy aroma, taste is hoppy but well balanced with a nice soft bitter finish, good but I don’t get the really high ratings for this one.

In the bottle.
Pours hazy yellow-orange with medium head and good lacing. Beautiful hop aroma reminiscent of a Dogfish but completely different on the taste. I’ve never had an IPA that tasted so much different than it smelled. Taste is large Cascade grapefruit and flowers. Great "Northwest" flavor. Very balanced! Just a great flavor! Great beer!!

On tap at the Drafting Room. Golden, fairly clear pour; strange aroma of overripe fruit, really an odd smell that wasn’t too pleasant. I’m wondering if something wasn’t quite right with this one. Bitter early, and strong grapefruit late. Good, but certainly not 98th percentile.

On tap at the Monk’s Cafe. Clear orange with a lacy white head. Nose is floral hops, sage and honey. Medium light with mild carb, increasing resin. Taste is grapefruit pith, orange, some toffee and herbal hops. Good, hoppy IPA.

500ml bottle. thanks to hophead22 for this beauty. pours bright glowing orange with white head. nose of powdery hop pellets, floral, grapefruit, pine. flavor is pretty drying hop bitterness, grainy and bit gritty, some nice grapefruit character. really nice ipa, very smooth feel to it.

17 oz bottle via Liquid SOl. Pours a clear amber with a massive beige head. The nose is nice and i note some pine and some orange. Taste is pure hoppiness with some orange, grapefruit and pine as well as a little earthiness. The pine/grapefruit carries though and lingers well into the aftertaste for a long long time. Nice. The body is medium, carbonation is perfect.

500mL Bottle. Thanks Andy! Flickr(http://www.flickr.com/photos/26049401@N08/3566376423/) Gross. Stinky wet dog and dying cheese aroma, back in there somewhere is a run of grass, but it just comes out smelling a bit like peanut butter, ass and bananas to me. Pours a slightly hazed golden amber, with a beautiful head of lacing white foam. Continuing wet animal and bitterness. This tastes JUST like the disgusting hop bomb that I made a little over a month ago. Wet dog, salty popcorn butter, and compost. In the flavor, hops are able to climb through a little more, but only as a piney bitterness. The hop cheese smoothes out a little, but still perks up in the finish. Hops are fine, I guess, but I really don’t have any interest in considering them amongst the weird stale hop disaster. Without much hop flavor, this seems needlessly bitter, considering that the malt isn’t really keeping up with the unbalanced bitterness.

In a re-calibration of my palate, I’m coming to learn that cheesy, stale, high co-humulone iso-valeric hops create a sensation for me that I had been miscorrectly identifying as diacetyl, which I still cannot, apparently taste. This beer has some funky stale cheese hops going on and I mis-interpreted that. Much less of a brewing flaw than the incorrectly identified diacetyl problem. Re-scored.

Bottled on 7/9/08. Poured slightly hazy golden/orange with a short, sticky cap of white head. The aroma was positively delightful.. pineapple first and foremost with complementary notes of pine resin and tangy floral influence.. the pale backing didn’t do too much, but it was well balanced.. a hair warmer impression than 6.1%, but that wasn’t necessarily bad. The flavor had a little more maltage than the aroma indicated, with bready and other pale malts present.. bitterness was plentiful with grapefruit and a hay/pine cross all over.. finished bitter with less specific character and some alcohol warmth. Medium-bodied and slightly scratchy on the palate from the resiny hops.. juicier on the back with a memorable finish. Great one!