Sonoran IPA

Brewed by Sonoran Brewing Company
Style: India Pale Ale (IPA)
Phoenix, Arizona USA

(draft) Orange body with small beige head. Aroma is straight-on English-style floral hops, very even. Taste is floral hops, medium sweet, good malty backbone. Nice chewiness.

amber colour, no head, very hoppy, lemon/orange aroma, bitter

Grapefruit candy enlivens the relaxing caramel sweetness underneath and thus creates extremely drinkable balance…Resinous hop bitterness appears in the finale with plentiful oranges…Flavorful while being quaffable, a very competent example of the West Coast IPA style with no belligerence, only a smooth but proud personality…

Medium brown color. Small head. A hoppy, malty IPA. Good flavor, not a lot if bitterness in the aftertaste. Hearty but mellow.

Re-Rate 10/03/02: A slightly cloudy amber color, the head is ’mountainous’, frothy, beige, long lasting as is the lace. Nose is floral, malt, sweet, and a nice ’Sniffing Beer’. Front is malt, sweet, the top light, the finish is appropriately hopped, acceptably dry, and satisfactorily carbonated. A good drinking beer, not great, but darn good actually. Ranks #587 on my current 1000 beer master list.

Pours from the growler a brilliant copper-amber color. It is topped by a frothy tan colored head that is initially two-fingers thick. The aroma is sharp and pungent a mix of pine, menthol and perhaps a hint of sweet citrus fruits.

The taste of the beer is sharp and pungent as well. There is a nice maltiness here that is lightly sweet, with a touch of caramel and a dry toasted malt note in the finish with a bit of biscuit-like notes thrown into the mix. The beer is light enough on the palate to be quite drinkable, but still has a richness and fullness to it that accentuates the hop character. There is a solid bitterness throughout this beer as well; starting with a gripping raw hoppy bitterness, moving through to a long herbal bitterness in the finish. The really striking thing about this beer is that there is a striking mintiness to this beer. It is quite noticeable and really dominates the flavor profile.

While this does not have the typical flavor profile of an IPA, the mix it does have is striking, and atypical enough to make this a really enjoyable beer. I was pleasantly surprised by this beer and definitely recommend it heartily.

Bottle. Dark amber color with a laced and sticky tan head. A candy spice hop aroma with a rich flavor. The citrus morphs well with the spice and flower hops. This is good stuff.

big juicy and chewy aroma spitting forth obnoxious fumes of apricot, mango, pineapple, wet irish setters, and a slightly mildewy book..the covering atop refused to disappear and just sat there thick and frothy with a microscopic orgy of tiny tiny bubbles..sitting was a hazy mass of orangish-amber beer...dirty/organic hop front..with riding bitterness..overripe fruits, dried apricots, and grass flavors follow..some rounded malts sweeten things up at the end..balancing it all out and leaving you refreshed..