Great Lakes Brewing My Bitter Wife IPA

Brewed by Great Lakes Brewing (Ontario)
Style: India Pale Ale (IPA)
Etobicoke, Canada

Serve in Shaker, Tulip

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UPDATED: JUL 25, 2010 Cask at Volo - came a ruddy orange hue with a thin white head. Fruity aroma - mango, peach, really tropical, with some sweet malt to hold it all together. Flavour is candy sweet, fruity, floral, chewy malt along with a splash of alcohol, which is present, but not dominant. C-hops all over the place. Long bitter green hop finish. Very nice, textbook west coast IPA. Please make it a regular one, GLB.

Pint atGLB Volo tasting. Pours a foggy orange brown with faint off white head. Aroma is packed with piney hops, some citrus. Flavour is very full on hops but with a decent caramel malt backing. Nice dry, bitter finish. Excellent.

On tap at Volo
Aroma citric, green hops with malty behind. Clean fine aroma. 7+
Appearance dark brown with slight haze. Creamy well presenting top.
Flavor and Palate : medium bodied. malty base with gentle roast of barley. Hint of nuts and green sided hops. Light alcoholic feel. Quiet drinkable.

Cask at Volo. Pours a cloudy orange brown with small white head. Big piney, herbal aroma with a little citrus. Flavour similar but with some caramel malt. Nice dry, bitter finish. Very good.

Cask at the Rhino. Nose is intensely grapefruit. Light resinousness. A little bit fruity and quite earhy. Very assertive bitterness and a heavy resinous hoppiness. Soft and fresh with loads of citrus skin. The cask treatment works very well for this one.

Bottle from brewery: Pours a hazy amber ale in the glass with a rocky off white cap. Soft carbonation, Aroma mimics a big ESB; Caramel over floral metallic hopping. Flavor is more like an ESB than an IPA. Caramalts, long boil kent bittering, fruity esters from yeast, some citrus, long bitter finish, metallic aftertaste. A tad two dimensional and overly bitter to no point.

cask. decent offering with a very floral somewhat citrusy aroma. taste is a bit bland with some floral hops and some sweet citrus as well. finish is bitter and astringent leaving you with an interesting but not excellent after t atse. not a bad beer by any means but just not quite what i enjoy in an ipa.

On ... draught? At Volo. Hazy amber with a small off-white head. Harsh bitterness in the aroma - like crushed long-dried herbs; slightly buttery caramel malt. Tasted very harsh and bitter - like hop oil or extract or whatever generic bittering agent brewers use when they’re in a hurry (don’t get me wrong, I like Great Lakes and what they are doing, especially on cask these days - but this one ... not so much). Average body, unpleasantly astringent, weakly carbonated, and a harsh long-lasting aftertaste (almost 2/5). No thanks - tweak this please, I think it could be decent - but give it some character.

UPDATED: JUN 13, 2010 *** Fresh project X bottle - wow nice combo of C-hop citrus and noble hop bitterness and bite, more USA-style grapefruit and less earthy than CEST WHAT TAP sample. This beer is slowly finding a balance... *** ORIGINAL RATE **** Overall very enjoyable pint at C’est What. Right away big British-style alefruit taste and a sharp grapefruit rind bitterness. I felt this to be more of a Special Bitter with added bitterness than an IPA style (just thinking IPA might show more citrus fruit,) it seems to lean on those earthy-fruity British aspects a bit more. Really solid stuff through the whole glass. This brewer is evolving. 8 / 4 / 7 / 3 / 12 = 3.4

Draught at Volo. Pours a hazy copper-gold with an average size lasting creamy off-white head. Some decent lacing. Aroma: Not bad, quite malty, caramel or toffee, some fruit -- could stand to be hoppier. Flavour: Again, malty with the hops in the back, but it does have a nice, slightly spicy bitter finish. Average bodied. Could be better, it’s malty for the style but still pretty good overall.