Bristol Compass IPA (Edge City IPA)

Nipe IPA, lighter than the typical US version though. Clean, almost honey color. Tell-tale piny hops. Light floral. Clean palate, tasty and refreshing.

22. Pours crystal clear coppery medium amber with towering, thick, massively surging, fluffy white head and thick sheets of lace coming down the glass as it settles. Easily a 5:1 fluff:beer ratio on first pour. Piney hops, crackers, a little bit of staleness due to diacetyl. Medium body, moderate carb. Biscuit, oranges, and a brief flash of resin near the end comprise the mid-palate. Mild resin and orange pith finish. Decent.

bottle. murky copper pour iwth spotty head. lacing. ciitrus and caramel aroma. wet cardboard w/earthy funk. hops are disappointingly weak. flavor is quick and leaves you wondering what just happened. not thin but flat flavor. dry finish. Didn’t even finish the bottle.

22 oz. bottle on 3/25/08. Massive, sturdy, light beige head over an orange/gold body. I don’t recall ever having seen a head this size in an IPA, yet it is certainly not overcarboonated at all. The lace is excellent. Fresh hoppy aroma with alot of pine and citrus, and a light toffee characer in the background. Medium body and carbonation, slightly resinous, yet only a soft dryness. ight caramel flavors last well into the finish, which is not very bitter at all, but is not sweet either. A pine/spruce type of flavor lingers on the palate. Not an verly assertive IPA, but has nice balance and drinkability.

Between sips of America’s Hall of Fame, I had to give my local brewers some palate-time. Enter Bristol’s Edge City series, an appreciated project riding shotgun to some of my standby local brews (I’d tip my hat to the Winter Warlock any day). This IPA pours an attractive Charentais melon hue, deeply translucid, like stained glass and topped of a nice white froth. Hops are obviously at the forefront, juicy and fruity – distinctly American. Grapefruit, pineapple, tangerine and hints of pine share the stage. Caramel and acacia honey lend offsetting malts. Hints of cedar, plum and lemon custard round the complexity of this jubilant nose. The flavor, surprisingly, is quite mild. A soft echo of honey constitutes the primary focus with subtle tonalities ringing erratically. Initial accents of spruce needles and cedar bark transition to a biscuity, burnt apricot mid-palate and finish with peach and pineapple. A sugary aspect competes with a hint of cheesy (Gouda-like) hop, but the excitement remains in this brew’s aroma. "Nice" is such an insipid adjective, but unfortunately Bristol’s Edge City IPA is just that: a nice beer. Not particularly exciting but eminently drinkable, with a tasty hop profile and a mild but genuine bitterness. (19/03/2007)

In short: A yeasty IPA. Well hopped but seriously lacking on the malt front
How: Bottle 22oz, consumed 2 months after receiving it from BeerandBlues2 (thanks a lot Brad!). Shared at a tasting session with Montreal crew
The look: Cloudy orange body with a small white head.
In long: Fluffy body with a strong yeast presence. Decent hop profile with flavours of orange peels, citrus skin and citric notes. Medium bitterness. All that is good but that beer has as much malts as I have class, and man was I proud of that big smelly fart that I let go at that tasting session. Funny stuff.

Cloudy orange pour with a thin white head. The aroma has strong grapefruit, the tell tale sign of C-hops. The flavor consisits of the grapefruity C-hops with dryness and bitterness. The body is light with moderate carbonation. It lacks a robust malt back-bone.

My Bottom Line:
Citrusy hoppiness morphs into a wooden, leafy bitterness in this relatively yeasty and straightforward American IPA example.

Further Personal Perceptions:
-A veil of foam skirts the murky beige.
-The end bitterness is raw and biting.
-The malt profile is not enticing enough to create interest and its lean body is barely sturdy enough to support the blatant hopping.
-The fruity hop profile is interesting, spanning from grapefruit juice to orange zest, but the last half of the sip is not as satisfying as the first.

Bottle.