Elysian The Immortal IPA

Brewed by Elysian Brewing Co.
Style: India Pale Ale (IPA)
Seattle, Washington USA

Tap @ Tangletown, WA: Pours a golden amber color, slightly cloudy, big white head, smallish bubbles. Very hoppy aroma, sweet, but not too hoppy. Slight bitter taste, very sweet. Nutty. Slight acidic aftertaste.

One of my favorite drinking IPA’s in the PNW. Very smooth with medium hops and a decent balance. Nothing special, but good.
Earlier Rating: 5/17/2006 Total Score: 3.7
Had at the Celtic Bayou a couple months ago. This was tasty, but not quite what I expected. Bitter hoppiness was prominent throughout. I like their regular Immortal better. Not like me to say that about a dry hopped IPA.

Unbelievable IPA. huge huge citrus hop aroma contered with a peppery spicy initial flavor. Smooth almost silky malt and light malt texture. Perfect mouth and perfect finish

Pours a cloudy medium amber color. Aromas of hops/hops/sweet malts. Flavor grapefruit with a little sweetness and finishes with a nice bite.

Poured from a bomber. Pours a slightly hazy golden orange with an average foamy off white head that laced and sustained. Aroma was of lighter citrus (orange), caramel. Nice balanced aroma but a little light. Flavor of grapefruit, bitter hops, some malty sweetness to balance.

Draught Small white rim; clear orange-amber beer. Slightly woody & smokey caramel malt, enlightened by good USA hops. Good hoppy flavours, more IPA than pale ale, I’d say, even when there’s sweetess detectable underneath. Lipsmacking sweet-hoppy residy makes up the MF, rather well bodied. One of Elysian’s classics - and rightly so.

On tap Coopers IPA fest ’06 in Seattle. This one pours a hazy amber yellow , lighter-colored than most IPAs, with a modest head.

The aroma brings lots of tea leaf and floral hops. The flavor explodes with floral dry-hoppedness and hints of whisky. This is intensely hoppy, but it is not the sort strong oil citrus you often get in a c-hop PacNW IPA, and the intensity in the finish is relatively shortlived. The beer falls short in that there’s no malt presence to back up all of that delicious hop flavor. The palate is a bit watery on the front, though it fills out nicely through the sip.

All in all, this is an appealing but ultimately flawed beer. It’s good, but could be better. That big dryhop flavor sure is nice, though....
Earlier Rating: 11/1/2005 Total Score: 3.6
Bomber 8/29/06 I need to lower my expectations when I come to this one. At $2.50 a bomber it’s a good deal on a perfectly nice beer, but I’m always disappointed when I compare my current experience to the 4.0 that I gave it when I was young and impressionable (i.e., last year). It’s a nice enough IPA, but really nothing better. So far as the hops go, it’s relatively mild for the PacNW, pine and orange , strong on the caramel malt though not massively sweet.

Draft 2/6/06: On tap at Atlas in Seattle. Pours a soft orange with a reasonable head. The aroma is relatively subdued; some piney hops and hint of sugary malt, but that’s about it. The flavor is mouth-puckering pine resin hops, with substantial backing from sweet brown-sugar malts, though the beer itself is not a sweet IPA in the least. The finish is dry, bits of citrus mixed in with the same full-bodied but not overwhelming piney bitterness. Mouthfeel is somewhat oily, but not unpleasantly so; unfortunately, this glass was badly overcarbonated, to the point of being prickly.

Original rating 11/1/05: From the bottle. Pours a golden amber with an ample foamy head. A well-crafted --- even if somewhat straightforward --- Pacific Northwest IPA. The aroma is pine and grapefruit and orange peel; the mouthfeel and flavor are not at all harsh, with a big cascade hop taste without being overwhelming in the least. There’s some sweetness here, as in honey, not as in syrup. The finish is gentle compared to some of the more brash IPAs, but satisfying. Definitely worth repeating. 7/4/8/4/17

Bottle. Deep golden orange in color with a nice white head. Hoppy and malty aroma. Citrusy grapefruit notes. Clean mouthfeel. Malty and hoppy flavor. Smooth. Finish is hoppy with a nice bitterness. Easy drinking beer. Very nice.