AleSmith IPA

Brewer: AleSmith

Beer: IPA

ABV: 7.25%

Location: San Diego, CA

Style: India Pale Ale

Even though I actually drank/reviewed this beer a week ago tomorrow, I’m gonna keep on plugging through with more west coast IPA’s, because I wanna get all the beer from my So Cal haul in here together. Run-on sentences. And Ironic fragments… Anyway, the beer “today” comes from yet another world class craft brewer, making beer that anyone would be hard pressed to dislike. A ballsy statement to make for sure, but I've heard worse. My only regret about this beer is not trying more of their line while I was down there; just about every liquor store I went in had most of their line-up. I’ll complain to you guys more some other time, but for now I’ll stick to the review. Pours a super orangey amber; a lot more orange than Pliny, but a lot less brown than The Maharaja. Small but very tight bright yellow-tinged but mostly white head; the bottle talks about how the beer is bottle-conditioned, and you can see a fair amount of bubbles streaming up from the bottom. This beer is following in the style of all the San Diegan IPA’s I’ve had, being quite foggy, you can still make out stuff through the beer, but its hazy. (again evidence of bottle conditioning). Smell is lots of grapefruit and other really sharp and crisp citrus bitter, but juicy, hops. Not so much tropical fruits, but like a bitter sour grapefruit smell. There’s some pine, and very little malt, but definitely smells like a resiny hoppy bomb. In the taste, up front its amazingly clean, with more bright crisp citrus flavours. There’s lemon and sour grapefruit, not altogether bitter at first, mostly a juicy fruity hop that has a nice bit of sweetness. Then I can feel the hop profile building, and while that juicy hop character sticks around, the bitterness very slowly creeps its way in a pretty sneaky way. The more that it warms, I definitely get more malty flavours, but that Hop bitterness hasn’t died out at all. It’s just as slow as the first go, but hot damn it feels like it is so much stronger – and for me that’s a good thing. So needless to say I’m left with hoppy bitterness in my mouth with some peppery/spicy notes, and realistically no alcohol, but I wasn’t really expecting to get any. I would say its medium bodied, definitely full of flavour though, and the carbonation is fairly noticeable – perfect for the style in my books. It’s not like champagne or anything, but it’s a lively carbonation that works really nicely with the alpha acids of the hops to tickle your tongue… if that doesn’t sound to lame...which it always does when you have to question it. It’s really a graceful beer in the way the flavours develop (again lame). It’s amazingly well balanced, and extremely flavourful, and the manner in which the hoppy bite comes in I’ve never experienced in a beer before. At first you feel like you might be missing out a little bit, and that the beer might be lacking that hop slam, but the flavour profile slowly yet exponentially builds.  I’m left feeling like I’ve just licked the rind of a grapefruit. Seriously flavourful IPA, and I’m glad it’s time in my suitcase didn’t kill the extraordinary hops at play in the beer. I’m confident this is the grapefruitiest beer I’ve had. If you put a grapefruit, skin and all, into a blender, pureed and strained it, this beer would still taste more like grapefruit than that. If I lived in Sandy I would legitimately buy this every day. Holy crap it’s good and cheap. Like $5 for the 650ml bottle. Kick me in the teeth.

Rating: This beer achieves the same level of grapefruit as this painting, for $975 less.