Cigar City Humidor Series India Pale Ale

Brewed by Cigar City Brewing
Style: India Pale Ale (IPA)
Tampa, Florida USA

Serve in Shaker, Tulip

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750ml Champagne bottle. Marked as Humidor Series. Cracking the bottle gives no doubt as to what the base beer was. Nose is Ruby Red Grapefruit juice. The citrus grapefruit of the hops and he crazy spicy quality of the cedar just meld to give you that distinct aroma. Super hoppy in flavor but not overly bitter. Very drinkable. Finishes woody with awesome perfumey spicy notes. Slightly resinous. A huge improvement on an already solid Jai Alai IPA.

The aroma is as advertised with cedar, pepper, pine, citrus, and toffee. The appearance is hazy amber with a head that leaves plenty of lacing. The flavor is like the aroma which is good but a bit too soapy and astringent. The palate is thick. Overall a formidable IPA.

Pours out a dark hazy amber. Smell and are the taste are the same sweet woody hoppy. Citrus, pepper, toffee, biscuit and pine. Good malt and hop balance. Smoothed out from the wood. The cedar gives off a strong flavor. Goes down easy. This is a great beer.

Pours a hazy, dark orange pour topped by a foamy, beige colored head that recedes to some sheets of lacing left on the glass. The aroma is very nice and different than the regular ipa. The nose shows a good amount of orange and grapefruit citrus hops up front to go with some pepper, and cedar wood. The flavor follows suit with the grapefruit and floral citrus hops up front to go with the peppery cedar wood. The cedar really enhances the citrus and hop bitterness. Sweet caramel malts try to smooth things, but the hops and cedar wood take center stage. Medium-full bodied with good carbonation that leads to a peppery, citrus finish. The cedar takes a really good base ipa and makes into something even better. Another winner from CCB, I really enjoyed this one.

750ml bottle from Redlight Redlight. Pours a hazy, medium-dark amber color. A thick, foamy head of beige colored foam settles in slowly to a bubbly blanket, leaving sticky sheets of lacing behind on the glass. The nose is aggressively wooded, with a strong overtone of peppery, oily cedar. Orange peel, citrus blossom, and pine lend substantial hop character, while the malt base offers up a nice toffee-biscuit sweetness. Flavors are slightly off-balance, with the spicy cedar intensifying the bitterness of the floral citrus and sticky pine hops. Cara-toffee malt is quite biscuity, but it ultimately takes back seat to the hops and the wood. Peppery grapefruit lingers on the finish. The palate is substantial, but perhaps just a tad bit overly active on the tongue, with a hint of soapiness coming through on the back end. This reminds me very much of the Hitachino Nest Japanese Classic Ale, for very obvious reasons. It’s good, but I prefer the more recent batches of regular Jai Alai, as well as the softer guava version.

With the regular Jai Alai IPA improving with every batch, now comes the Cedar Aged "Humidor" version. The aroma is still dominated by sweet citrus and pine hops, but now has an equally potent aroma of cigar box cedar blended in. Both smells are distinct. The flavor is more of the same, two distinct flavors that find a way to work well together. The Jai Alai IPA is a good IPA and the cedar aging makes it even better. Very good.

Bottle from Knightly. Just released! Pours a rustic amber color with a thick fluffy off-white head. Excellent head retention produces heavy lacing. Cedar prominent in the nose with toasty malt and piney hops. Sharp cedar flavors upfront, sawdusty, and the cedar really brings out a lot of grapefruit flavors. Some pine too. Long-lasting bitter dry finish. Very well crafted. I’ve only sampled the regular Jai Alai once on tap (very good also) but to me this tastes completely different. Interesting, a bit different, and delicious! I’d like to get some more of this because it’s that good but also look forward to getting more base Jai Alai and comparing the two.

A very impressive IPA from Cigar City. The cedar adds just that little extra flavor to make this outstanding. Perfect balance of malt and hops (very similar to the Hercules Double IPA). Delicious.

750 @ redlight redlight side by side taste with draft jai lai. pours way cloudy with awesome head retention. huge grapefruit and pine on this one. cedar really prominent. normally even the slightest sweetness on an ipa ruins it for me... but the light sweetness works for this one. the cedar really changed the flavor - super sticky... another killer beer from cigar city.

750 @ redlight redlight. Huge grapefruit nose, loads of citrus. Pours cloudy golden orange with a white head. Wow, the cedar really brings out the citrus hops, big grapefuit flavor, some tangerines, finishes with some pine and very sticky cedar flavors. Jai Alai is already one of my favs this a really nice version, its surprising how much the cedar changes the flavor, i’m actually tasting it next to the regular jai alai.