Central State Brewing ‘Gus’ Imperial Farmhouse IPA

Rating:

50022274_1017372758446869_3800887920559128576_n“Named in honor of Indiana-born astronaut Gus Grissom who lost his life in the pursuit of taking a man to the moon, this IPA is aggressively hopped with Australian Galaxy and American Mosaic hops.”

Glassware: Tulip.

Appearance: Super cloudy light orange-ish colour. Two fingers of fluffy white foam forms and holds together nicely. Seeing healthy lace work as we indulge.

Aroma: Tonnes of orange citrus qualities – mostly rind and pectin with a hint of marmalade. Peach, white pepper, banana and apple really coming through…among other usual estery suspects. There’s a bit of funk to it, not overpowering though which is good…just a suggestion of wheated grains and farmyard to bring it home.

Flavour: Big impression of pithy orange peel, grapefruit and dry acetic bitterness on entry. Hints of white pepper and warming booze accentuating it even further. It continues with this relentless bitterness and practically finishes how it begins – dry, bitter and citric. Not a whole lot of depth on offer.

Mouthfeel: Pretty aggressive. Dry and bitter. 9% AbV so it’s quite prickly as well. Can’t find an IBU which is annoying coz we’d like to know!

Overall: Can’t say we’re fans of it. Our main gripe is this incessant dry and pithy bitterness that grabs a hold of the palate and just wrecks it. It’s like they needed to add a sweeter base malt to balance it out a bit. Had better.