Angel City IPA

Brewed by Angel City Brewing Company
Style: India Pale Ale (IPA)
Los Angeles, California USA

Serve in Shaker, Tulip

Note Possible bad bottle. This IPA pours a deep amber color from a 22oz bottle. Small to medium sized white foamy head. Aroma is caramel, tart fruits and very herbal. A medium bodied IPA. Malts are caramel and sweet with lots of tart/sour fruit flavors. Hops are herbal and earthy. Nice carbonation. It just that this beer has a weird taste that makes me think it gone off or is a little infected or something. It seems to be a lots more in the English Style IPA, with all that herbal and earthy hops flavor, but it has a sort of lactic aftertaste that does not seem right somehow. I am going to go ahead and rate this with the proviso to get another bottle and re-rate it sometime in the future. I mean I have had worse tasting IPAs than this one. Mouthfeel is full. Finish is crisp. Aftertaste is slightly bitter and a touch sour.

Bomber pours out hazy copper – orange with off white head. The aroma seems somewhat Belgian like with yeasty spice mixed with lime, sour green grapes and a hint of malt sweetness. The taste starts tart with lemon, lime and under ripe grapes followed by tart grapefruit rind. A faint malt sweetness wells up at one point but doesn’t do anything to stave off the citrusy bitterness. Maybe this bottle has just started to sour. If it is meant to taste like this then I really didn’t care for it too much.

Obviously made in the English style. Aroma is some earth, grass, and some lemon. Beer pours a opaqe amberish color. Flavor is more of the grass and lemon. Not overly bitter at all. Relatively drinkable, but really average. I will not drink this again.

Bottle: Reddish amber, hazy, moderate to large light beige head, frothy, fairly nice lacing.   Immature fruit on the nose.   Slight rubarb in fact.   Where the hell is the hop bitterness?   Odd bitter fruit flavor... no pine, citrus, or floral notes thats usually associated with an IPA.   This isn’t even a Pale Ale.   Ale maybe...   Biting finish, sour fruit in fact.   Not sure if this is spoiled, but based on the other rates I think this is normal for them.   Thats too bad...   Thanks for the new label Jordan!

Appearance: Lightly hazy, orangey body with a small, white head. Smell: Sweet and sour aroma of ashamed malts and stale, soapy citrus hops. Here we go again! Taste: Unhappy malts comingling with sad, sad citrus fruits. And it’s all pretty tart! If there’s any hop bitterness present, it’s fully obscured by this tartness. Ugh. Mouthfeel: Medium-thin body. Medium carbonation. Drinkability: Heavens, no!

Bottle: Courtesy of Styles. aroma is not IPA-like at all. Peach, grain, hint of pineapple, and some stale smelling hops. Pours a transparent amber with a small white head. Flavors of sour orange, rotten fruit, and a somewhat flowery hop finish. Everything just seems off. One of the worst IPA’s I’ve ever had.

22oz bottle. Golden color. White head. Aroma of Red Bull, guarana. No beer characteristics as far as the Aroma goes. Flavor is sour then it follows to a stale loaf of bread. Bad beer taste. Kill yourself.

Sampled February 2007
Pours with a brilliantly clear, reddish copper color. It is topped by a frothy, initially two-finger thick, light tan colored head. The aroma has an interesting herbal, almost vegetal note to it. It is quite malty as well with notes of caramel, toasted biscuit notes, and chewy, almost malt extract type notes.

The beer is quite smooth up front with just a touch of malt sweetness. The finish dries out even more and has a toasted, almost roasted coffee like note to it. The beer has a solid bitterness to it that is noticeable throughout the brew. There is not a whole lot of hop flavor here; just a light herbal character is noticeable. The malt seems a bit old; notes of caramel, and toasted grain, but also a sort of aged malt character that is both dry melanoid rich. This tastes like a pale ale, though it has more malt character. This really seems a throw back to the days before the American craft brewing hop craze. Drinkable, and fairly decent, but even using English hops this could be greatly improved upon.