El Toro IPA

Brewed by El Toro Brewing Co.
Style: India Pale Ale (IPA)
Morgan Hill, California USA

Serve in Shaker, Tulip

Bottle. Pours dark orange / amber with a small amount of white head. Nice orangy fresh citrus hop aroma, some hop resins come through also. Solid malt presence in the flavor with light citrus and substantial pine / resinous hop bite. The resin lingers, in almost a bad way, and this might actually be the most bitter regular IPA that I have had. The finish is almost like biting into an orange rind.

Pours golden with spotty yeast flakes. White, receding head. Floral and piney aroma, with lots of fruit notes. Nose is honey and hops. Pretty decent IPA. Has bite, hits floral notes, nectar like flavor that eludes many IPA’s.

UPDATED: JUL 9, 2008 Piney, floral aroma. Poured a slightly cloudy orange with a slight white head. Rich piney flavor with some grapefruit, and a lot of bitterness. Grapefruit more prominant as it warms up. Bitterness lingers a while, and a little astringent, which I don’t consider a good thing. Might pair well with a juicy cut of beef.

Bottle. Pours Amber with orange hues. Aroma is pine, citrus, sweet honey, and some yeast. Flavor has a good malt character then leads to a long acting bitterness on the back of your tongue. this is pretty hop, but i drank it almost room temperature. I think i would have scored it higher colder.

A- Pours a deep orange hue with a hearty 2 finger head that leaves quite a bit of lacing. Few carbonation bubbles present, filtered and clear. S- Smell is faint but dominate in hops. Very piney and possibly a bit overbearing if the nose is any indicator. T- Taste is mainly resiny, piney hops. Very strong bitterness at the end for a normal ipa. I enjoy this beer but it seems like it hides behind the strong hoppiness. M- Semi- thick and very carbonated. I personally prefer beer with a good amount of carbonation but I think this may be a little bubbly for me. D- Because of the huge hop presence and not much else I would say it’s not the most drinkable ipa on the block. It is certainly enjoyable and I would drink it again but it is not my favorite IPA.

Bottle, thanks to Irishboy and shared with HogTownHarry. Hazy orange with a lasting white head. Lovely hop-milk, sweet aroma. Flavour: like a hoppy milk chew, with lemon there too, very drinkable almost ’juicy’ also some sediment in the end of the bottle

Bottle (12oz). Shared by garthicus, courtesy of irishboy. Poured hazy amber-gold with a smallish creamy white head and plentiful tiny suspended white particles. The aroma was hugely of acidic conifer hops (spruce bark), as well as lemon zest and a hint of thick lactic - smelled quite a bit like a Balsam Christmas tree, really. The up-front component of the taste was strong with pine resin, pineapple and grapefruit pith after oxygen hit my palate, but still a decent backbone of juicy malt stayed with the bitterness through the long finish. Average to light body, strongly acidic/astringent on the tongue - really a damnfine IPA, but with that level of acidity I would like even more malt body.

Pours cloudy orange, creamy head. Taste is a lot of grapefruit and pine hops. Not a lot of malt. A little unbalanced for my taste, but still solid.