Durham Hop Addict

Brewed by County Durham Brewing
Style: India Pale Ale (IPA)
Pickering, Canada

Serve in Shaker, Tulip

On tap at C’est What? OUTSTANDING! Lots of pine and citrus grapefruit aromas. The intense hop flavor is great. This seems like a much stronger beer than the 5.45 ABV belies. Long lingering tongue drying palate.

Great first impression--good appearance and nose. Amazing hop aroma, but the flavor and mouth don’t live up. Thin and watery, tinny and unbalanced. Not enough malt to match the killer hops.

on tap @ Beer Bistro Toronto. One of the better Canadian IPA’s I’ve encountered. Pine hop flavor withcitrus presence. Pretty smooth.

On tap at Volo. Aroma of piney, citrus hops, with some malt too. Light copper, small custard head. Taste starts off very hoppy, a fine malty backbone soon presents itself. Medium bodied, well balanced between the sweet malt and it’s appreciated bitterness. Really fine example. Kudos to Ralph for inspiring the brewer!

Draught at Beerbistro, Toronto, ON.
Clear amber colour with small white head. Dark fruity hoppiness in aroma. Grainy malty flavour with bitter fruity hops. It’s not that bitter after all. Best in this brew is the tap handle.

UPDATED: APR 10, 2008 The hops are back! See previous notes, but I can bump my rating back up because this is now consistently hoppy fruity and delicious. Newest batch early 2007 not so good - hops have faded, leaving behind the all too generic English based malts dominating the proceedings. Bring back the hops - turn them up not down, especially with a name like this! I’ll average the cores out until I try it again. Original rating: On tap at Volo. Dark orange, small white head. Nice citrus hop aroma - grapefruit - and some sweet malt notes. Nice hop taste - this is an English style session ale, lots of rich caramel and sweet notes with a noticeably American hoppy bite - very similar to the new Headstrong, but even better in my opinion - a little less body but much more hops. Only complaint: because the body is a little thin, it becomes a little too sweet and then unbalanced as it warms. But served chilled, this is a great Ontario beer and a nice effort by Durham. And they should be commended for pushing our conservative little Province wide envelope.

Draught at Volo. Orange-amber colour with a tiny head. Aroma is mild, a bit earthy with a hint of hops. Flavour is quite hoppy to start, overpowering anything else that’s in there, but it settles down nicely after a few sips. Hops are of that pleasant grapefruity variety that I tend to like, and it’s backed up by good malts that are biscuity and a bit earthy/minerally. The brewer describes this as being influenced by the beers of the US Pacific Northwest, and I can see that in the hops, but the rest of the beer fits nicely with the UK style ales that Durham specializes in. All in all, a pleasant, non-pretentious pint.

Too hopy for me, it was very well brewed, very dark, good foam and not annoying but too bitter.