Bristol Compass IPA (Edge City IPA)

Brewed by Bristol Brewing Company
Style: India Pale Ale (IPA)
Colorado Springs, Colorado USA

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.

Crushed at the Pumphouse Spring Beer Festival. Decent IPA. Some good bitter hops combined with some poopy malt in nose and flavor. Drinkable.

Bottle courtesy of Santa! Pours a nice copper color with a small white head. Aroma of hops, citrus, pine, malt. Flavor is pine, caramel, malt, oily resiny hops, grapefruit. Nice sweet yet bitter balance. Pretty nice IPA.

So, my girlfriend is in the middle of cleaning and I see her walking around with a beer and she popped this without telling me. What a jerk. I had a sip to rate it, thanks santa! Pours cloudy amber with a small white head. Caramel, toffee, candy sugar, and hop aroma. Flavor was orange citrus and marmalade, caramel malts, plum, and a slight medicinal bandaid thing. Finishes bitter.

Bottle. Roasted note for the malt, pine for the hops, a hint of dough for the yeast, with a background note of apricot. Head is small, fizzy, slightly off-white, with good lacing and is mostly diminishing. Color is clear, dark amber. Flavor starts moderately acidic and finishes lightly acidic and moderately to heavily bitter. Palate is medium, watery, with a lively carbonation and finishes moderately astringent and dry. An okay IPA, but missing a few things I like in the style.

Bomber. Pours copper with white head. Aroma is caramel malt, light hops and citrus. Flavor is caramel malt and faint hops and light citrus. Much better if you let it warm up a bit. This might me an old bottle as I am not getting an fresh hoppiness or big citrus flavor. It was in the cooler section so who knows. All this is now is a malty pale ale.

there’s a stable full of fine colorado IPAs these days in approximately this profile: muscular, hoppy as a box of ping pong balls but well balanced with sweet golden malt. this entry from bristol perform nicely in a taste test with amicas headwaters, il vicino wet mountain, and palisades red truck. by the end, i was flummoxed, it was like rating four different table salts-- the similarities far surpassed the differences. this one has just a bit of haze to it’s cheddar orange clarity, it’s head is as full as dolly parton’s left breast. the hops have nearly a minty aspect to their green-bark freshness, while a pumpkin-papaya toffee note carries the message the malt wants you to know about. the sweetness and bitterness thrash about like mating mallards-- right down the middle of the tongue, vying for the ’up’ position, with the bitterness and it’s piney orange flavors finally dominating. a nice, creamy, medium-bodied drink fashioned for casual mid-evening quaffing.

Tap. Poured a clear copper-orange color with a moderate off-white head that faded to a soapy layer and left some nice rings of lacing. Aroma of bright citrus, such as orange and tangerine, some leafy hops, and a bit of pine. Smooth, lightly tart entry with a faint hint of toasted caramel and a nice fruitiness including orange, grapefruit, tangerine and apricot that transitions into an earthy leafiness with some soft hints of pine and a bit of tart fruitiness on the finish. Moderate carbonation and nice mouthfeel. Overall, an underrated IPA. I was pleasantly surprised.