Review! Smuttynose IPA

Decided to restart bloginating. Tonight I'm going to try reviewing a beer my wonderful fiancee picked out for me, Smuttynose's "Finestkind" IPA.

Apologies for my poor photography skills, the only digital camera I have right now is the webcam on my MacBook and it's hard to angle shots well.

The beer pours perfectly, I got a good half inch of head off that stuck around a bit. It's a reddish amber color, hazy with a little bit of sediment. I got a faint whiff of citrus from the pour. Grapefruit aroma is definitely present when you sniff the beer, this is an Amurrican IPA. This is good because the beers I've been drinking lately have been a little lacking in the hop character and I could use some bitter in my life. The first sip is a piney, grapefruit ambrosial experience that mellows into the malty backwater flavors of the beer, along with a not unpleasant alcohol burn. It's hard to forget this is a 6.9% ABV (alcohol by volume) but this doesn't detract from the hop-forwardness, just livens up the tongue for the next sip. As the beer warms the malt flavor starts to drown out the alcohol, which is nice. This is a little less balanced between hops and malt than I'm accustomed to, but the hops are balanced within themselves so the bitter is not overpowering and there's a full spectrum of hop flavors.

Overall, Finestkind is  a quality American IPA, no surprises, no flaws and a good way to spend an evening