Schooners IPA

Brewed by Schooners Grille & Brewery
Style: India Pale Ale (IPA)
Antioch, California USA

Draught - Bright orange w/ creamy, diminishing white head. Nice lacing. Lots of pine, grapefruit and honeysuckle in the aroma. Medium bodied w/ a smooth mouthfeel. Almost a perfect balance of malt and hops, the floral essence of the hops is really front and center. Resinous pine and citrus flavors abound. Finish has a dry and slight mineral quality w/ a lingering citrus rind bitterness.

On draft @ the brewpub. Cask Conditioned. Darker in color with a white head. BIG Amarillo hop aroma. Very good bitterness with a great malt backbone. An outstanding IPA IMO. I don’t know if this is the same IPA as the one most people have rated here. If it is, it sounds like they may have changed the recipe some.

Had this on tap from the brewery, so it was nice and fresh. Somewhat dark in color and it has the huge Amarillo hoppiness aroma to it that is very nice. Big pine notes with sweet caramel malt backing balances it out nicely. I really enjoyed this.

On tap at the Schooner’s Brewery/Restaurant in Antioch. It pours a clear gold with white ring of foam. There is a nice grapefruit citrus hop note that comes right at you out of the glass. It’s not only grapefruit but also a “sweeter” aroma of ripe orange wedges. The thick mouth feel for an IPA ushers in both sweet grapefruit and orange citrus hop flavors that slowly give way to more and more hop bitterness. The increasing bitterness may be due to the mild malt sweetness subsiding into oblivion. Nice offering.

Bottle: Copper caramel color, light white head and tons of sticky lacing. The nose is bright and grassy, some wood (pine) and grapefruit; earthy hops along with the lovely pale malts. The flavor is cobbwebby and sticky, nice wood and caramel. California style for sure with that bright robust dry hop in the nose and sweet simple body. Very sticky long tail with a candy note at the end. Excellent.

Courtesy boboski. Slightly cloudy straw color, not much head, a few stray bubbles. Nice fresh Cascade smell, grapefruit rind, flowers. A bit thin on the palate, but well-carbonated. Robust hoppy start really runs over the malt and leaves a nice light finish. Fresh and tasty. The bottle we tasted had 7.2% on the label. <P> Sampled again, courtesy SoLan. Had a more citric hop character on the taste than I remembered and the palate was definitely improved this time.

Courtesy of aspidites. This rating probably does not do this justice, but I will probably never have this again and I really enjoyed it. Orange golden. Extremely floral IPA with hints of grapefruit, oranges, etc. Nice big bitterness leaves room for some light bready/pale malts. Lingering floral hoppiness. Under rated.

I loved that this ’IPA’ was less hoppy than some pale ales. Despite my love for hops, the taset was very well balanced. You know it’s an IPA, but the hops are so integrated with the malts that the citrusy hops and sweet malts blend well during the initial taste, followed by a more bitter yet still pleasant finish.