Conductor Imperial India Pale Ale
Best by Date of January 2007, Sampled March 2007 Pours with a brilliantly clear, markedly reddish, copper color that is topped by a frothy, initially three-finger thick, light tan colored head that has some staying power to it. The aroma has a bright, clean, hopped up, candied fruit character to it. Notes of sweetened peaches, tropical fruit, apricots, lychee, candied orange peel, and super ripe tangelos are quite descriptive of the aroma. I don't know why but it almost seems to clean, but at least if you dig around a bit you can some nice toasty / caramelized malt notes in the aroma. Strangely this beer does not have much taste as it first hits your tongue, I get a sense of bitterness, but it is not until I start to swallow that the fruity hop character becomes noticeable. The hops are accentuated by a lightly caramelized malt sweetness, and even a touch of alcohol accentuates the sense of bitterness in the finish. This beer is very clean, in fact too clean, a lot of the flavor seems to have been filtered out of this brew. It is not nearly as big and hoppy as I was expecting, even though there seems to be enough malt here to get this to a Doubly IPA hopping level. Bright notes of sweet citrus, lychee and tropical fruit are definitely the biggest flavor contributors here. This beer just ends up leaving me dissatisfied. What is really disappointing is that this should have been an explosion of hop flavor, instead the brewer seems to have filtered this beer into a flabby, flat shadow of a Double IPA.