Bear Republic APEX

On tap at Cato’s in Oakland, CA. It pours a clear copper with thin white head. The aroma starts out like candied orange wedges. Upon further study grapefruit hops and caramelized malts seem to mix together to create a sweet orange candy aroma. The taste is thick and chewy grapefruit, pineapple and pine hop bitterness. There are brief moments where sweeter grapefruit hop flavor murmurs to the surface. Midway a roasty semi sweet maltiness struggles in vein to be heard over the onslaught of hops. A delicious malty – hoppy IIPA.

Draft. Burnt copper color with a thick, frothy, almost white head. Grapefruit and pine aromas mixed with some sweet malt notes. Malty and grainy. Some resinous hop notes but the flavor seems pretty balanced towards the malt end.

Very nice IIPA. A little bit lighter in body than most but goes down very nicely and easily. Very crisp and well balanced.

GABF 2007. A very good beer. Suprised @ the 66% rating. Smooth and drinkable for a IIPA w/ a hoppy, piney bite. Very good.

5 ounce sample on tap at Bistro IPA Festival. Chewy, grainy, hempy simcoe-ish aroma. A little grassiness is also there. Rather aromatic and quite pleasant, too. Mildly hazy copper body with a small, quickly dissipating off-white head. Hempy, catty, simcoe-like flavored start. Relatively sweet, chewy, malty body in the middle, which becomes slightly dry in the finish. There are some late piney hop flavors very late. Decent stuff.

Draught tulip at Sunset Grill on 6/7/07
Severely muddy appearance is full of burgundies, chestnuts and other brown-red tones. Small, beige-colored head recedes quickly to ring, leaving blotchy lacing.
Straight forward, PNW hopping in the nose is just your same-old citrus and pine, with mostly bitterness and no light fruitiness or fresh juiciness. Too much medium malt sugariness washes in quickly and soaks everything in sweetness, as an earthy, bland, somewhat dirty yeastiness sits on the finish, barely snubbing out the alcohol warmth.
In the mouth, aside from being loosely carbonated and full of wateriness on the end, the beer is vastly underattenuated and probably more resembles a barleywine than a double IPA. Citrus and pine attack and fatigue the palate, while nauseating amounts of caramel and pale malt sugars complete the overdone nature. No finesse, no balance, not even a nice mouthfeel. Wow, what the hell went wrong here?

Draft at Belmont Station: Pours a deep golden amber color with a thin white head. Aroma is of carmel and grapefruit. Flavor is malty carmel at first and then a strong fruit peel like bitterness. It goes back to the malt after that and all the sugary notes hit you, like sugar syrup, a little sticky. You then finally get the real fruity citrusy grapefruit hop characteristics. Lots of flavor but a little too much. 1 pint is enough.

[I had the good fortune to try this again at Blind Tiger - it left a much better impression this time - it was still a bit on the sweet side, but it was softer, less aggressive - next to their Mach 10, it was actually a bit tame - decent, but still not as good as most of the ratings indicate] Tap at Sunset Grill - cloudy orange with a lasting head - stereotypical, aggressive pine/grapefruit hop aroma, with a sticky malt undercurrent - abrassive hop bitterness, chewy body - sticky and overly sweet, tasting like grapefruit with a whole bowl of sugar poured on top of it - very apparent alcohol, burning the throat more and more as the beer warms - not terrible, just too in your face - a lot of people are going to like this beer for the very reasons that I do not.