Silver Gulch Old Gerks Educator IPA

Draught at Silver Gulch. Pours hazy dark orange with an average, fizzy, white head, lasting with good lacing. Aroma is average malt (cereal, hay), heavy hop (citrus, pine, spruce), average yeast (sweat) with notes of apple, pear, and peach. Medium bodied, sticky texture, average carbonation, and a bitter finish. Average duration, light sweetness, moderate acidity, and heavy bitterness.

Sorry iamsancho. Silver Gultch’s best is equal to Midnight Sun’s worst. And I lived in Fairbanks, and prefer most of Fairbanks to Anchorage. But Silver Gultch starts with Fairbanks Lager and goes south from there. This was the best beer of the night. Silver Gulch has gone from micro with "free beer Friday" to yuppie brew pub eatery that focuses on Belgian imports. Oh well. Not a bad IPA. Typical PNW IPA. Hoppy. The best part is that the Fox (the town outside of Fairbanks where SG is located) water is featured nicely in the beer. Fox water is worshiped world-wide, and has a special taste. It’s mineral-ly loveliness ... soft...comes through in fairbanks lager too. If at SG, try this.

The Silver Gulch Brewing Company is located in Fairbanks, Alaska and produces some very good beers that rival those of the Midnight Sun Brewing Company and the Alaskan Brewing Company. This one is no exception.

12 oz. bottle, purchased and transported back from the great white north by DarkElf himself - thank you my beer bro! This IPA pours clear pecan-amber color with a medium sized creamy white head that leaves thick lacing. Aroma is relatively mild and features good hoppines of the floral and citrus persuasion, along with toasty malts and hints of caramel. The flavor starts off with toasty malts which are rapidly overwhelmed by bold and assertive hops with tastes of citrus, juniper and grapefruit rind in the finish and long into the aftertaste. There’s also a bit of a strange metallic taste that I found a little distracting at first, but seemed to diminish as the beer warmed. Light to medium body and pleasant carbonation levels make it easy to drink but not terribly interesting..

(12 oz bottle: Gift from the brewery) First, a quick story. A special limited release, and brewed because of the incessant pleading of a local teacher, the IPA was only being sold by the case at the brewery. However, since I had no way to bring home an entire case of one beer from Alaska, one of the volunteer workers (Carol English) at their famous Friday open house parties bought a case for herself and gave me one of the four six-packs as a gift!!! I was blown away by what she had done for me, and am eternally grateful. Now, onto the beer...

I’ve tried this beer twice now, and it’s a beer that needs to be sampled when a bit warmer. It’s a pretty boring beer when on the cold side, but once it warms up, things really start happening. The nose presents a solid toasty maltiness, with a somewhat milder hoppy aroma to remind you that this is, in fact, an IPA. The minimally sweet but toasty (or, even lightly roasty) maltiness shows solid presence again in the flavor, but the moderately bitter hops refuses to be left behind this time, and seems in perfect balance, leaving a mild citrus flavor in the finish. Medium bodied, very dry and clean on the palate, fairly crisp in the finish. Bright, coppery amber color, perfectly clear in appearance, and the small, off-white head slowly settles to ring, leaving bits and pieces of lace on the glass. If you like a balanced, but very dry IPA, this is for you.