400 Pound Monkey EIPA

Thanks goes out to Josh Schipp for your great host skills and your even better beer appreciation (the room erupted in wave of glares when a case of Coors light entered the room). Tasted this Saturday night at the Nieu Coope, Centre for the Higher Arts accompanied with a number of interesting people. Paired well with a Acorn/ butternut squash, pumpkin crisp that everyone devoured.

Appearance: Coppered bronze with a mediocre foamed head that dissipated relatively quickly. Due to lack of proper glassware, this beer was tasted in a Ball mason Jar, which I found kind of cool. Forceful carbonation was even visible amongst the turbid profile of the ale.

Aroma: Robust malt/caramel character presented through the sweet baked aroma. Smells slightly grassy at the end but the sweetness is far more apparent. rich floral notes. Permeating through I find notes of biscuits and even quite notable spices at the nose.

Taste: My first impression of this ale fell along the lines of a club soda. Not particularly a favorable characteristic. Extremely grassy and bitter totally misrepresented by the sweet aroma. In fact there was little malt sweetness to the flavor at all. It wasn't until the after burp did the sweetness perceived in the aroma reveal itself as the roasted biscuit malt taste. Interesting. potential grapefruit zest flavor.

Mouthfeel: Carbonation is high, and even prickling to the tongue, which only added to the overwhelming bitter finish. Lighter body, and the mouthfeel isn't cloying.

Overall Impression: It's rather unfortunate the bitterness entirely overwhelmed the potential complex flavors of this beer. I found that it finished plainly bitter...Warrior hops? with little residual/alternative complexities to the hop profile. Generally, if it were just the aroma I was rating, this beer would get higher score, but unfortunatley much of the loss in the overabundance of bitterness

68/100