“Prepare to be tagged and bagged as this Full Metal Jacket of an IPA rains an apocalyptic hellfire of clustered hops and passionfruit aromas upon the senses. There’s nowhere to hide, so gear up, sound off, and blast “Ride of the Valkyries” at full volume, because, soldier, you’re at war. We love the taste of IPA in the morning.”
Served in an IPA glass. Warhog pours quite a cloudy but bright orange/mustard yellow with a fat finger of white foam capping it off. The head gradually collapsed to a fine film with patches of lace left on the glass.
The aroma is very citrus-forward with heady notes of grapefruit, orange peel, candied lemons, lime, unripened pineapple and passion fruit leading out. It’s fairly acidic with little malt presence. Maybe a hint of stonefruit coming through as it begins to settle in the glass. Not bad, although we’d be lying if we didn’t say we were expecting more from it.
This IPA certainly shows its war face in the mouth as this big bitter bomb descends on the palate. All 55 IBU of it. The body is somewhat light and gassy with a nice lifted Co2. ABV sits at 7.5% and contains itself pretty well.
The flavour continues on from the aroma with a firm acidity in the form of grapefruit, citrus rind, passion fruit and a kind of resinous pine accent. That hop bitterness really develops in the middle and lays a dry and bitter platform for the citric, grassy and resinous hops to finish on.
Well we’re not totally blown away but it is a good interpretation of an American West Coast IPA – big in grapefruit, big in bitterness and with a slight piney and resinous tone laced through. It just seems to be missing the wow factor for us. Good but not great.