Meantime India Pale Ale

Pours a beautiful slightly hazed honey color with a full, creamy, spattered froth. It looks like a pancake that just sits there, superb hangtime. It finally reduces to an island pattered, silky canopy and a fluffy ring. The aroma of sweet cream and aged citrus rind sends me sailing. Mmmm nice! Full nectar w/ mellow residual effers creating a creamy texture. A big fat malted soupy specimen w/ malted rustic caramel balanced by an aged British citrus rind agent. Highly hopped and only midly sweet w/ nuances of candy necklace, aged citrus pulp, some pine, and a bit of driftwood. Irish Cream Ale meets the Queen. Give the bottle a shake and it pours like a cream ale with the widget. Alcohol is well hidden. The finish is bittered mildly despite the high hop rate (indicitive of a massive malt influx). Overall: this brew is fantastic. The mouthfeel is totally creamy. A decadent IPA w/ rustic British intervention. I highly recommend this brew with flying colors.

This is a veryflavourful, full-bodied, and well-rounded IPA. The hop bitterness is not as storng as some may want, but it has a lot of hop charcter backed up with a great malty-sweet body. Golden and bubbly, it’s slightly hazy, with a huge, creamy off-white head that lasts a very long time, slowly shrinking to a smaller top and good lace. The smell is wonderful, ripe green apples, grapefruit, pine, grapes, and honey, with a hint of herbs. The taste is both sweet and bitter, extremely flavour and complex with appel, honey, pine, citrus, grass, orange, jam, fruit. it has a rich sweetness with alcoholic warmth and a a dryish finish that’s hoppy and spicey.

750ml bottle from Sainsbury’s. Clear orange gold with a frothy white head. Citrus and floral hops in the aroma with a touch of malt sweetness. The flavour is superb. Sweet with a spicy earthiness, fruity with a long dry and bitter finish. Beautifully balanced. The palate is considerably lighter than the ABV would suggest. This is a classic beer and holds up in comparison to the great USA style. It’s also one of those rare brews that fully comlememtns spcy, hot foods.

Call me crazy, but this is as near to perfect as beer can get. Great aroma, mouthfeel, flavor, & balance. The hop aroma shifts between floral, resinous, grassy, and fruity. Deeply bitter with a treacle malt balance. Roasted malt shares prominence with the hops and gives way to an almost Belgian something extra. If I have to say anything negative about this beer, it’s that it may just leave a little too much sweetness on the lips and the head dissipates just a little too quickly. Just as I was getting bored with American hop monsters, this beer saves my life.

Are you all mental? Just because there are no hugely aromatic American hops providing those classic citrus/piney flavours you’re used to doesn’t mean this isn’t hoppy. Fuggles offers a real earthiness with Goldings offering more floral and citrus characters. But of course you know that. A big sweetness (traditional) and huge bitter finish (traditional) with lots of fruit, earth and spice. Gorgeous. Don’t get me wrong, I’m a huge fan of the American IPA style and it has done wonders for the world brewing scene and the US is often way ahead of the British brewing scene (not always of course), but let that not detract or distract from the beauty of this beer - the hops are wonderful and in amounts of this proportion, I’m glad to be English.

Beautifully marketed, cork and caged, bottle conditioned British IPA. Retailing for $10-$11 a 750ml bottle, a bit pricey, but I say worth it for a British IPA with this much character. Its clear that Meantime put a lots of time, effort, and hops in recreating an authentic IPA, and they have succeded in my opinion. While not as agressive as American IPA, this beer has tremendous hop aroma, flavor, and bitterness. Meantime IPA pours to a slightly opaque, burnt orange color, with a thick and creamy white head, and a moderate amount of carbonation. The nose is loaded with fragrant hop aromas of orange peel and tangerine, paired with some biscuit and sweet malt aroma. The palate is firm with good pale, sweet, and biscuity malt flavor, along with estery fruit, and flavors of orange and tangerine. Meantime IPA finishes with more good pale and sweet malt up front, then ends with a very pleasing fruity and orange peel bitterness that lingers on the tongue. Excellent example of IPA, very similar to Burton Bridge Empire Ale, a very hoppy, very authentic example of IPA. Well worth seeking out. Would make an excellent match to Indian, Thai, or any other spicy fare, as well as traditional British fare.

The beer came in an elegant looking Champagne style brown-green bomber with the information about the beer printed on contoured labels. Having a wire cage and cork added to the overall refinement of the packaging. As the beer relinquished the confinement to the appointed Imperial Pint glass, the color looked golden amber, the body slightly hazy, carbonation ample, and head well proportioned at two-finger thick. The appearance was pretty spot on for an IPA from either side of the Atlantic, while the smell was that of signature English hops. The restrained spiciness, and full on earthiness of the hops could not be mistaken for anything but Fuggles & Golding. The taste indicated that the hops had been added in amounts typically absent from the beers brewed over there. It wasn’t overly bitter, but it was certainly spicy and snappy. There was also a good deal of citric acidity that makes the American versions of the style so quaffable. The very cohesive flavor profile set off fireworks in my mouth with each sip. The body was medium thick and carbonation soft and creamy, i.e., the typical IPA mouthfeel that makes me long for the next sip. Aftertaste was long drawn out and citric. Kudos to Meantime for incorporating the American influences so well, while keeping the beer an English IPA at its heart. Will have to pick up more next time I’m at Green’s.

Uncaged and uncorked, this poured with a nice sexy yellow-orange and a poofy, survivable foamy head. The aroma is kinda yeasty, reminiscent of a Belgian golden more than an IPA; the flavor on the other hand is heartily fruity, although there’s a big warm undertow, too. This is an interesting interpretation of style, fitting neither the American nor British stereotypes. Again, I’d almost guess this as a Belgian ale in a blind taste, except for the sturdy furity (orange blossom, mostly) body. Quite enjoyable, quite different. (#2800, 4/17/2007)