Scratch Beer 37 - 2010 (IPA #1 Of 4)
12 oz bottle into a pint glass. Thanks go to wishuwerebeer and stakem for hooking me up with an early bottle of this. Pours a crystal clear gold in the glass, with 2 fingers of rich bright-white head. This retains with a foamy finger of smooth froth that throws a creamy cascade up that hangs on the sides of the glass in sticky swathes. The aroma is floral and citric smelling, with an almost perfume-like character to it in spots. Digging deeper reveals some ripe fruit, dankness, and a gentle spiciness. Malts work well with the fruity aspects of this to form a sweet twang in the back of the nostrils. Those sugary fruit notes really start to control this as things warms up. The taste is initially very bitter up front but this smoothes out very nicely once this gets to room temp, spreading hop flavors of green fruit, herbal qualities, and citrus peel out onto the palate. This is backed by a sticky blend of fleshy tasting fruit character and the toasted graininess of the malts. This finishes with a combo of pithy citrus peel and dry spice. The mouthfeel is medium bodied, with a solidly firm crispness to it but is mostly carried by a smooth slickness underneath that keeps this moving. This is maybe showing a little too much warmth as well. Not necessarily in the profile but the kind that creeps around in your throat and chest after you finish a sip. This definitely isn't your average IPA and although I don't have a huge amount of experience with this hop variety, I'm going to go out on a limb and say that this is primarily Nelson Sauvin? Lots of hop flavor here but without any overt bitterness to it, I was really digging on this for the most part. The only thing holding it back for me was the warmth in the back-end. I'm definitely up for checking out more of this once it's officially released.