Boulevard Double Wide IPA

Brewed by Boulevard Brewing Company
Style: Imperial/Double IPA
Kansas City, Missouri USA

Bottle shared with Blankboy, Hogtown Harry, and Garthicus. Dark orange, big fluffy white head with lots of orange tints. Great aroma, a ton of hops and some malt. Taste is really good and more of the same - a DIPA with a lot of malt to balance it out. Simple, straight forward and damn tasty.

Courtesy of Styles

Bottle: The aroma has lots of citrus, yeast, citrus hops, and light fruit. It pours a hazy amber with some very fine sediment and a large soapy off-white head that leaves behind clumpy lacing. The flavor starts with lots of citrus fruit. There is a weird fruitiness in the background that doesn’t work for me. The finish has moderate citrus hops with some light caramel. The off-fruitiness seems to fade slightly as it warms, but it’s still unpleasant to me. Medium bodied with soft carbonation.

750ml. Floral and malt aroma. Cloudy copper body with off white head that left good amount of lacing. Flavor was more malt than fruity citrus hop bite but smmoth and decent brew.

25 oz bottle. Pours a nice deep copper body with a big craggy frothy off white head that had excellent retention. The nose is more sweet caramel malt than it is hoppy, and that’s not a good sign of an IPA to me. Lots of stale iced tea crystal malt, then lighter floral hops. There’s plenty of bitterness to stand up to the crystal malt up front, but it loses out on the back end. Finishes with a light resiny note and grainy crystal malt. Mouthfeel is medium bodied, fairly creamy, with moderate fizzy carbonation. Overall, this just wasn’t the kind of IPA that gets me going. I want hops and more hops, not hopped stale iced tea.

12oz bottle, unlabeled, "Double Wide IPA" in small yellow letters, courtesy of Gregis. Thanks, Greg! Pours a bright, ruby-tinged orange color; huge, creamy light tan head with great retention and lacing that coats the glass; a beautiful pour. Pleasant resiny, grapefruit and piney hop aroma; soft, tempered hops. Ever since trying the Buckeye Amarillo IPA, I’ve been looking forward to another IPA/IIPA that manages to present such a great hop character without astringency clouding things: I can think of Racer 5, fresh 90-minute, and this. Medium-to-full mouthfeel, resiny and oily pine and citrus hoppiness throughout, coating the mouth; light candy sugar and maple syrup maltiness, with little to no astringency surrounding it - just clean, chewy hop character with the minimum malt necessary to keep things afloat; floral and orange hops appear at mid-palate. Lengthy, resiny grapefruit and pine finish; just a hint of malt for balance. There’s a lot to be said for this beer.

Test batch, courtesy of theisti. Thanks, man!
Pours a solid cheddar orange with a huge off-white head. Singing aroma of apricot, grapefruit, and a hint of peach. Flavor is strawberry pine rounded out with melon peach. Full mouthfeel. Fantastic; stop testing, guys; let’s brew some more of this stuff.

Batch Number: D8121; Sampled September 2008
A soft pour into my 25cl tulip glass easily produces a three-finger thick, light tan colored head. The beer is red stained, darkish amber color that shows a lightly hazy, orangish tinged, red stained, dark copper color when held up to the light. The aroma is a mix of up front citrus hops and a crystal malt backdrop. Aromas of bergamot, candied grapefruit zest and lychee are dominant up front, while softer notes of caramelized malt, lightly toasted grain and even some pine-notes are noticeable more towards the end if you dig for them. This is a touch muted when compared to the more hopped examples of an IPA, much less a Double IPA, but it is still quite hoppy and definitely enjoyable for the inner hop head.

Sweet tasting with a big, biting bitterness. The carbonation is a bit excessive and just causes the beer to foam up as it hits the tongue. The alcohol is noticeable towards the finish with a warming effect and the crystal malt definitely plays a big role in the flavor. The excessive carbonation is dealt with by a vigorous swirl of my glass, this softens the texture allowing a medium-rich body to become noticeable. Flavors of sticky caramel, lots of browned malt character, a touch of toffee and a toasted, browned, whole grain bread crust like flavor in the finish are quite noticeable considering the slightly more dominant hop flavors should be the central focus. Despite my ignoring them up until this point, this beer is about the hops after all and they do contribute substantial flavors of candied orange zest, lychee, a nice herbaceous, at times menthol-like, pine note that mingles along with the bitterness in the finish.

Definitely on the malty side of the spectrum for a Double IPA; it focuses a bit too much on flavors derived from crystal malt and the body could certainly be a bit lighter so that it captured the quaffability that I find requisite in a Double IPA. For all of my griping about this not being the type of Double IPA that I prefer, this is actually not all that bad, in fact it can be downright enjoyable when you get down to it; forget about styles, and just enjoy the beer. It is certainly enjoyable and I have no qualms about finishing, though I would characterize it as more of a crystal malt focused, hoppy, Double American Amber, than a Double IPA.

Purchased: South Bay Drugs, Imperial Beach CA

C&C 750mL bottle from STLWill. Thanks! Batch B7292. Pours a hazy watermelon color with a large head. Good head retention and lacing. Very nice looking. I’d hit that. Oh, wait, I am! Aroma is both fresh and stale hops... citrus mainly with some leafy notes. Big toffee notes also. Taste is leafy, bitter hop notes with some citrus and lots of toffee and raisins. Very strong bitterness. Full bodied. Definitely feeling its age a bit, but still a very nice beer.