Midnight Sun Sockeye Red IPA

Bottle: Pours a transparent amber color with a large, foamy white head. Nice, thick lacing. Nose is a soft citrus with malty sweetness. Taste is dominated by citrus hops, floral tones, grassey, and sugary sweet malt. Dry, lingering finish.

Bottle from puzzi. Amber color with large fizzy head. The flavor was of only bitter hops. No malt character what so ever. Slight fizzy carbonation made me feel bloated. Just too one dementional.

22oz bottle, from my sis! Nice looking amber hue, with a modest frothy head (and a big ol’ swirl of yeast) this one looks promising. It smells fairly promising too, with a citrusy nose. But the taste is imbalanced and a bit of a mish-mash. The hop bite isn’t bad, but the particular malts used here seem not to integrate too well with the hop profile. There’s also a bready thing that gets in the way, and a slightly acidic finish. Not horrible but nothing I’d seek out again.

22oz bottle from Degarth! - Thanks Joe! - Pours copper with a short offwhite head. Aromas of big northwest hops. Simcoe is most detectable in the aroma. Flavor is good citrus grapefruit and some pine upfront but it is backed up quite well by caramel malts and lots of bready notes. I found this balanced on the palate with medium body with a fairly bitter finish. A pretty nice IPA.

Bomber from Liquid Solutions. The highly concentrated citrus and pine hop aroma reluctantly gives up some hints of bread and caramel. The body is a dark copper/red and holds a fluffy white head that is fairly lasting. There are numerous floating particles that may be yeast, but they look like bits of congealed fat. <P> Fore is citrus peel bitter and that bitterness is highly concentrated running well into the finish. As it warms the bitterness fades ever so slightly and some caramel accents appear, but this is almost solely a vehicle for delivering lots of hop flavor and bitterness.

Bottle from liquidsolutions. Pours a copper-rust color with a nice layer of off-white foamy head. Nose is hoppy, no question about it. Also seems to be some grainy notes almost as if there is some rye or wheat involved here. Nice on the tongue and leaves a bit of bitterness behind.

KSBF 06 after party brought by Willblake. Pours a nice slightly hazy amber with a good fluffy off white head. Hoppy and citrusy with centennial and simcoe character. Grapefruit flavor, light pine somehwat smokey character to the hop flavor, decent light caramel malt backbone and leaves a nice mouthfeel and good finish. Nice IPA.

An average beer to say the worst, but it has room for improvement. The beer I had was a tad oxidized, but nothing extreme. Classic hoppy aroma, albeit a little on the weak side. Malty and bready on the palate, with a nice hop bite. Nothing sub-par about it and I think if it were fresh from the tap it’d rate much higher.