La Cumbre Heirloom IPA

Brewed by La Cumbre Brewing Company
Style: India Pale Ale (IPA)
Albuquerque, New Mexico USA

Serve in Shaker, Tulip

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10oz draft from La Cumbre; November 2012
The beer arrives from the tap with a frothy, pale tan colored head. The beer is a rich amber color that shows a gold tinged, clear hue when held up to the light. The aroma has lots of floral and citrusy hop notes to it; there are specific notes of grapefruit, and citrus blossoms, as well as a touch of peppery and pine-like aromatics towards the finish.

This has a big, biting bitterness throughout, with flavors that are herbal, woody, lots of citrus, and just a good mix of hop flavors. The woody / herbal character really lingers on the palate after a sip. There is a supporting backdrop of whole-grain character, hints of straw, and some good cracker like notes that add a touch of malt balance to this otherwise hop dominated beer. Specific hop flavors of tangelo zest, lychee overtones, lots of grapefruit, a peppery / somewhat woody character, and pine are all noticeable (even when I hiccough).

Heirloom American Style? It is quite nice, whatever it is, I really like that it is nicely hop focused; the malt character is here, but not overly intruding on the hop focus.

tap at the brewpub-november 2012-pours deep copper hue with a small slightly eggshell head with sparse lacing. nose is a bit on the British side of things-big earthy, herbal somewhat resinous hop notes. Definiately Brit hops here. flavors show the leafy tobbaco like qualities here with some lite resinous bitterness. great lush mouthfeal here-moderate carbonation works perfect! long tobbaco like hop qualities lingering long into the finish. A very decent brit inspired ipa here.

Growler from the brewery. Slightly hazy amber color with small frothy white head. Aroma is heavily pine and citrus. Medium bodied, softly carbonated with a moderately bitter finish. Nice hoppy bitter flavor, but smooth and not overpowering. More subtle than most of the "hop bomb" IPAs out there. Different and good.