The Kernel India Pale Ale Galaxy

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

Serve in Shaker, Tulip

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330ml bottle. Pours a clear golden amber colour, slight white head and a peachy resin hop aroma. The taste is smooth bitterness, resin hop flavour, with peach grapefruit woody bitter hop notes. Some back of the throat bitterness and dry woody resin hop aftertaste in the finish. Quite drinkable.

Bottle from Bacchanalia, Cambridge. 7.2%. 330ml bottle. Bottle expired in Sept 2012, so might not be as fresh as it should. Transparent, slightly hazy, with a nice golden colour. Pours fair sized white head, which persists well. Light carbonation. Aroma - Hits you straight in the nose with a wall of lovely and intensely fruity & floral hops and candyish, sugary sweets & caramel. Very fruity; tropical (pineapple), sweet, juicy & citrus, and also very floral and nectary (what with the sweetness). Lots of oily hops, which are quite spicy and musky, with some grassiness too. A distinctly Kernel aroma of sweet fruit. I can only imagine how good this would have smelled when fresh. Taste - Bitter, which was a bit of a surprise, given the aroma. All the other big, fruity pale ales that i’ve tried from Kernel haven’t been overly bitter and are sometimes a bit too sickly. A lot of bitterness upfront, stuck to the tongue throughout. But there are a lot of fruit flavours in there to distract you from this: Tropical fruit juice, pineapple, pink grapefruit, grape, floral. Pine and some spicy & grassyness too. Lots of hop oils to coat the tongue. Malt is caramellish. Finish is lingering bitterness, with fruit & hop flavours. Body is medium and oily. A lovely, intensely fruity IPA, that really packs a punch and does a good job of showing what this hop can do, but though it’s nice to have some refreshing bitterness to such a big, fruity beer, this is a bit too bitter for my tastes.

tap at de molen 2011... hazy amber ... big hit spicy hop nose .... juicy oily hop ... too bitter for me ... oily hop ... huge citrus ... too much for me

Bottle at home, from Tomlinson’s Beer Shop, Inverness. Another hop I’ve previously been unsure about but this is a real winner! Passion fruit, dry grass and straw with a big resinous nose. Lovely

Aroma is a bit sweet and syrupy with some orange coming through. Flavour is quite bitter with some bittersweet orange oil coming through strongly. The balance on this one is more in the direction of oily, bittersweet fruitiness and less so on the lighter tropical and citrusy fruit flavours.

Bottle (330ml):
Strong pine aroma with touches of grapefruit in there and a whole lot of hops. There is some citrus and a tonne of bitterness and some more grapefruit notes right at the end that is pretty crisp.
Hazy orange colour with touches of amber and a foamy but thin, white head that settles to a thin and patchy lacing after about 2 or 3 min.
Strong pine hops and a lot of grapefruit, exactly what I would expect from a Kernel IPA. There is huge amount of grapefruit with a touch of citrus, orange and lemon. This one is a standard but fairly nice tasting IPA with great bitter notes and good strength.
Light medium bodied with tonnes of bitterness and light carbonation. It’s a smooth beer and has bitter, wet finish that has a lingering grapefruit taste that stays for a while.

Just what I was expecting from this one really; a solid, big hitting IPA with huge amount of pine and bitterness with enough background flavours to make it work.

Draught@Euston Tap, London. Orange colour, small white head. Aroma is fruity, floral, citrusy and quite bitter. Flavour is fruity, floral, bitter grass with some mild nectary and sweet malty notes as well.

Keg at York Tap (about a week ago--I believe it is gone). The colour is quite orange and has a white head. Just like the other Kernel beer I’ve tried, this one is not shy with the fruit features--loads of juicy & sticky tropical fruits ready for eating. I will make it a point to buy loads of bottles from this brewery.

Keg. Amber/orange with white head, good lacing. Loads of tropical fruits in the aroma. Taste: Tropical fruits, hop oils. So much pineapple--like I’m back home drinking Lotus.

Poured at home from a 330ml bottle (Jan ’12) into tulip style glass. Pours a rich murky/fully hazed orange, you cannot see your fingers through the glass! A small white head forms but soon dies off to a gentle puddle on top of the beer. Wonderful hop and pine smells assault the nose along with citrus fruit, predominately grapefruit. The taste is all hops, citrus fruit largely grapefruit as per the nose, maybe a sweeter fruit flavour in the background possibly apricot and also a sweet carmel undercurrent, but very subtle and understated. Great mouthfeel this beer massages the throat, medium bodied with minimal carbonation leading to a bitter-sweet semi-dry aftertaste.