Ithaca Excelsior! Thirteen

Formerly brewed at Ithaca Beer Company
Style: American Strong Ale
Ithaca, New York USA

Serve in Snifter, Tulip

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Gorgeous honey colored pour with nice white head and plenty of residual cling. Nose is lemon, orange, honey, and grainy malts. Taste is a citrus bomb with plenty of peel and zest all up front. Fairly large back end bitterness that really is keeping this from being special for me. Nice mouthfeel.

Bottle, 11/13/2012, batch E!036, from Good Beer NYC. Pours cloudy, light burnt orange with small head, fades to nice hazy slick. Aroma is definite sorachi ace and orange citrus, lemon peel, pear and tropical fruits, nice caramel backbone, light wheat. Taste follows suit: bright sorachi ace most prominent, with juicy orange, cantaloupe, grapefruit character. Medium palate, fairly smooth and highly drinkable. Really like the sorachi profile. It was great to find this again, not as aggressive as when fresh but still quite nice.

February 11, 2012 - with JoeMcPhee, blankboy, jercraigs & mabel. 750ml bottle c/o j&m. Bottle E!034. Hazy orange, tiny black floaties, smallish frothy/creamy off-white head. Aroma is tart apricot, alcohol - simple, really appealing. Taste follows, a little lactic, lots of floral pungency and alcohol. Thick body, mild carbonation and acidity, finishes dry with a touch of vanilla, oddly.

750ml bottle in a Trappist glass. Pours cloudy copper with a lacy, cream-colored head. Aroma of citrusy hops, lots of malts with the wheat and oats being present, and some fruits too. Flavor strong on everything. Smooth texture. A good beer.

This bottled brew from a bottle shop poured a very large sized head of foamy finely sized white colored bubbles that were mostly lasting and left behind a softly carbonated transparent yellow orange colored body and a thick foamy lacing. The aroma was hoppy and dough. The mouth feel was tingly at the start and at the finish. The strong flavor contained notes of dough and hops. A decent one that I would consider drinking again.

Bottle as an extra from trade several months ago. Aroma has orange and lemon peel, along with a citrus and floral hop character from the Citra and Sorachi hops. Taste is mostly the same, except the hop palate falls off as it warms. A very good beer overall. ---Rated via Beer Buddy for iPhone

Found on a dusty old shelf in MA while visiting my parents. The label says that these beers evolve over time and can be cellared indefinitely... even though I was skeptical based on the hop profile of the beer... however after talking with the owner he gave it to me for only few dollars... Pours a deep hazy copper orage color with a large frothy head. Surprisingly there was alot of citrus and lemongrass aromas mixed with touches of spice and some malty honey notes. On the palate it was alot of teh same but the citrus notes didn’t stand up as much as the nose lead me to think it would. Lots of Belgian candied flavors and honey with small glimpses of citrus and spice.

Picked up a bottle of this while in upstate NY recently. It’s an orange-gold color with a thick fluffy off-white head settling on top. There’s big tropical fruit notes in the aroma; pineapple, coconut, mango, peach. A little straw and caramel malt blend in with a slight medicinal scent lurking. The flavor picks up on that showing lots of coconut and pineapple particularly. A little barnyard funky straw follows with a bitter and dry citrus peel finish. The medicinal thing, as noted in the aroma, tastes kind of like aspirin. It’s not strong or too distracting, thus doesn’t make a big impact, but it’s there. With all the tropical fruit, this does sit a little on the sweet side of things. This is one of those beers I certainly enjoyed, yet kept thinking I should have liked it even more than I did. Something just didn’t quite fit to make it a great beer.

Yellow cloudy straw pour. Thick lacing sticks to the glass well. Aromas of apricots, pach, slight farmhouse. Taste is over the top fruity with pineapple, peach oak, sorachi lemon. Everything blends very well. Aftertaste is citrus and sweet honey. Excellent.