My IPA was finished conditioning on November 17th. I gotta say I’m happy with how it turned out. A good beer.
Looks a bit more amber than I thought but I’ve read that extract kits tend to do that more often. It isn’t too dense, which I think was a good thing I think for an IPA. It was a little cloudy but that is from not racking to a secondary.
The smell is primarily hoppy. Very slight smell of malt.
Drinks pretty easy and has just the right amount of hop flavor I expected. I drink it with the yeast and pour it full to mix it up. First sip is floral and slightly bitter. Not sweet but that also could have been skewed by the Biere de Garde I drank prior, which was very sweet. It is more on the dryer side but not as carbonated as I’d like.
The aftertaste is mildly bitter, asking me to have another sip.
I think this may be slightly too bitter for people that enjoy their factory beers. It is slightly less bitter than a Sierra Nevada IPA, more along the lines of a Lakefront Brewery IPA.
I tend to make my homebrews for me, rather than the people I share them with so, when I do another IPA it will most likely be a double of some sort. Overall, I’m happy it turned out and will enjoy during the remainder of the football season.
