Meantime India Pale Ale

Brewed by Meantime
Style: India Pale Ale (IPA)
London, England

Bottled like Champagne (nice sales gimmick to not only contain the bottle conditioning but to also get me to pay $10 for a 750ml bottle). This Brit import is more like an American IPA: spicy hop aroma, nice tan head, appealingly cloudy butterscotch color. Flavor is 70% hops, 30% malt--nice and bitter. Finishes on the hoppy-dry side. Glad I sampled it, but the price’ll have to come down for me to revisit it.

Pours amber, very hazy, with thin head. Big aroma with lots of malt and some hops that add an aroma of pine. Flavor is dry, malty, with a great bitter finish leaves the mouth wanting more. Nice chewy body; yet somehow still refreshing. Complex. Very well balanced. Solid IPA.

More hoppy than the regular British IPA, with Fuggles and Gouldings, a very drinkable pleasant IPA. Right there in balance. Good aroma, foamy head and lots of creamy lace.

Pours a scintillating hazy golden orange color. Oranges, apricots, lemon, herbs and dry coffee waft up to the nose. Yeast on the nose and in the bitter greeting to the tongue. Good carbonation, smooth, creamy character. The best flavors are on the finish, where the cakey malts and savory hops finally all mellow in together. Really a great treatment of the IPA.

Burning forest in color, with a full lofty foam. Fruit cocktail hop aroma (peaches, apricot, pear), with a touch of floral aromas, along with a mildly vibrant sweet malt, caramel thing going on in the nose as well. Well balanced malt and hop flavor, though it is hop accented. The hops are still fruity, just like the aroma, but they also seem piney and resinous as well. Definately not your typical "English" medicinal, antibiotic hop flavor, which some American brewers seem to seize, but rather a fresh, very lively and fitting hoppiness. The malt was very sweet and lingering. Overall, I found it very tasty.

Color is medium amber, crystal clear, with a quickly-dissipating head and some decent lace. Aromas are floral hops, biscuit, vanilla, sweet berries, apple, alcohol, banana, pineapple, sweet grass, malt and caramel. Tastes sweet but not fruity, with malt sugar and grapes, madeira, moderately bitter metallic and herbal hops, earth, caramel and bitter citrus. Semi-dry finish with a lasting hop impression. Excellent mouthfeel, clean and refreshing, slightly oily.

Not big and bold like the newer American interpretations of the style. Radiant yellow-orange body with a bold white head. Very smooth with a fruity front and earthy back. The one thing this did not come with was a lot of kicked up hoppiness but rather a subtle interplay. This one is remarkably smooth and drinkable. I happened to split this bottle because I was expecting it to be maybe a bit too much. Not so; I could have easily quaffed this on my own.

Cask at The Greenwich Union. Hazy golden, almost peachy colour with a decent white head. Rich citrus hop aroma. Flavour is quite bitter, though there is underlying malty sweetness. Lots of grapefruit. Medium to full-bodied. A refreshing beer with character.