Thunder Canyon Good Vibrations IPA

Brewed by Thunder Canyon Brewery
Style: India Pale Ale (IPA)
Tucson, Arizona USA

Serve in Shaker, Tulip

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(Draught) Pours a clear orange body with a medium white head and descent lacing. Aroma of caramel, pine, orange, and grass. Flavor of caramel, grass, pine, herbs, and some bread with a bitter finish.

on tap-pours a light tan head with trailing lace and cloudy orange color. Aroma is orange/lemon-citrus/pine, medium malt. Taste is orange/resin/herbal hops with some bite, secondary medium malt-caramel. OK carbonation.

Draft. Poured a clear copper color with an average frothy white head that mostly lasted with excellent lacing. Moderate tart citrus and earthy aroma. Medium to full body with a slick texture and soft carbonation. Medium to heavy bittersweet flavor with a medium bittersweet finish of moderate duration. My expectations where exceeded.

Gold pour, white head. Citrus peel aroma, very light resin. Caramel malt and light resinous hops dominate the flavor.

Pours hazy yellow with fluffy white head that lasted throughout the beer. Nose is citrus, and more piny hops. Taste up front is blasted with citrus and more piny hops, and then has a bit of caramel sweetness that works its way well into a nice bitter finish. How all IPAs should be made, an excellent beer that I wish I could get all the time!

Orange with creamy white head and lace. Aroma is resin, caramel malt, and bread. Sweet caramel, resiny hops, and bready flavor. Smooth bodied with good carbonation. Nice beer.

Sampled 1702, Tucson; November 2009
This arrives from the tap with a frothy, almost two-finger thick, pale tan colored head that leaves some nice lacing on the sides of my tulip glass. The beer is an amber color that has a bit of haze to it. The aroma has sticky citrus hop notes, some lychee and some tangerine aromatics to it up front. The citrus actually has a caramelized edge to it, the nose is really quite fruity smelling (notes of tropical fruit too) and doesn’t really have much in the way of noticeable malt character. It even gets a bit better as the beer warms up.

As the beer hits my palate for the first time it comes off as clean and bitter up front; it is really way too cold though, which really mutes the flavors. There is still a pungent hop flavor that comes through easily enough; herbaceous pine, pungent grapefruit and lychee are noticeable enough. There is an ample biting bitterness to this beer that combines in the finish with a crisp carbonic bite. Really there are lots of grapefruit like flavors here that mixes well with the supporting, pale-caramelized malt sugars.

When paired with my just arrived pizza, more flavors of caramel and citrus come out, but this also brings out a bit of alcoholic heat in the finish. This really is quite highly carbonated, which can be a bit distracting as the beer warms up; it does make for a perfect visual presentation though. Luckily some quick swirls of the glass gets rid of the excess carbonation. The beer is actually somewhat under-attenuated for my tastes, though I wouldn’t say it was overly heavy either.

This beer really comes into its own as it warms up; it achieves a nice balance between the hop dominant character and the supporting malt character. Even the aroma picks up more of a tropical fruit like character. The texture is creamy, in a good way, for an IPA and the high carbonation, I suppose, helps to balance this out. I bet this would be wonderful if served on cask. In the end this is quite enjoyable, and it definitely grew on me as worked my way through this beer.

On tap at Thunder Canyon
Appearance: Slightly hazy golden with a small white head and some light lacing
Aroma: Floral
Taste: Floral and citrus
Nice.

on tap 3/14/10. hazy honey color... pale amber with an off white head and gobs of drippy foam. rich malty aroma with notes of dry, earthy and spicy hops, honey, grassiness, orange peels, citrus blossoms and peaches. the palate is a bit thick and sweet though it is quite well balanced. it finishes dry and lingers that way for some time while the aroma’s characteristics fill in for the flavor. medium body leans on full but is helped out by dry hoppiness. still, a bit too rich. 7/4/7/3/15/3.6

tap at brewpub-pours lightly cloudy orange with a small soapy white head. tropical hop nose-mangoes, papayas, somewhat catty as well. piney flavors more so than teh nose would suggest-pine, tangerine, and resin. resinous finish but not overly harsh. not overly complex of a IIPA here but decent. some decent grapefruit shows up on the finish as it warms. good but not great.