The premise of this IPA is that it is brewed with fresh fall harvest hops from the southern hemisphere, specifically, from New Zealand.  It’s released in April, having been brewed within a week of of the hops having been picked in New Zealand.  Hops are the focus, and that shines through in the beer.  The aroma is nutmeg and pine, and the middle is resiny with lemony zest. The bitterness is concentrated in the finish. This is another really great beer for west coast style IPA fans.

Mighty Oak Ale is a summer seasonal from Samuel Adams, an amber ale aged in oak barrels.   It seems to me that oak is easy to overdo, but Sam Adams has delivered a nicely balanced beer in Mighty Oak Ale.   There are definite oak flavors, but it’s not overpowering or overly acidic at all.  The aroma has a lot of caramel with some hints of vanilla.   The middle is where you taste the oak, softened by vanilla, and the finish is sweet with raspberry and fruit with a little more vanilla from the oak right at the very end.  This is a very nice beer, with a flavor that’s bigger and bolder than what you often find in a summer seasonal.

This is a really top notch example of a hoppy west-coast style IPA without being overly bitter. There’s pine and grapefruit in the nose.   The middle is bready, with more pine and grapefruit.  The body is thick and heavy, and the finish is slightly sweet with bread and grapefruit, and just a little bit grassy.  This is the first brew that I’ve had from San Diego’s Green Flash Brewing Company, so I didn’t know what to expect, but from the first sip it instantly hit me that this beer is exactly what I want and expect an IPA to be.  I really, really like it.

Ska Brewing’s Decadent Imperial IPA pours a lighter orange-pale than I was expecting.   Don’t let the color fool you though.  This is a big, heavy beer.  The scent is that of a pine forest.   The middle is thick and chewy, with pine and grapefruit and then there’s a caramel finish lingers on the tongue with a bit of heat from the alcohol at the end.  There’s a bit of sweetness at the end, but not as much as I usually get from an Imperial or Double IPA.  The flavor profile is hoppier, more like a regular IPA, but the sticky, heavy body and the 10% ABV are certainly in line with a DIPA.   A nice beer.

Monkshine is a certified organic Belgian-style Blonde Ale from the Uinta Brewing Co. of Salt Lake City, Utah.  The strongest note is banana.  There’s banana in the aroma, and through the middle where it starts to fade away.  I think I taste some cherry as well.  There are some hoppy undertones, like a hint of lemon in the middle and into the finish, but this is predominantly a sweet beer, with a bit of balancing tartness…Not really much in the way of bitterness at all.  This blonde ale will probably be most appealing to fans of fruit beers.

The Boston Beer Company’s mixed case of summer styles is out and it has several varieties I haven’t tried before, and the first one I’m reviewing is their unfiltered white IPA, called Whitewater IPA.  It pours a hazy golden color, and since it’s unfiltered, there’s a lot going on.  No, the glass in the picture is not dirty; That’s yeast floating in the beer.  The nose is earthy and yeasty (the Belgian influence) and the middle is predominantly sour, fading to a bit of pine and cherry.   This is more Belgian White Ale than it is IPA, but there is a bit of characteristic hop flavor in there, towards the end.  A good beer, but it would be nice if it were a little more complex, and had a little more IPA character.  My bottom line is that I think this beer will be most appealing to fans of Belgian sour beers.

Founder’s Red’s Rye PA is, well, awesome.  I really enjoy rye ales, and hoppy ales, and this is both, and a cut about the rest.  The nose is heavy grapefruit, the middle is packed with grapefruit, pine, and the signature dry bite of rye, and the finish is more grapefruit, sweet, with some bitter rind at the very tail. The balance and complexity are both outstanding, and I’m glad I found this one in a six-pack, because this is definitely one I want again.

“Wilco” isn’t actually the phonetic alphabet  but I imagine that they needed to avoid “Whiskey” so that they wasn’t any confusion about the contents of this big brown ale.   They call it “malty” but that doesn’t translate to “sweet” as it so often does.  This is a hoppy, bitter brew, and the predominant flavors in the middle are of oak and alcohol and a hint of citrus rind, with the malted sugars coming only coming through in the finish.  I’m not usually a big fan of brown ales, but I’m definitely a fan of hoppy ales, so I liked this one better than most, though it could have used a bit more complexity in my opinion.

So this week, I’m working in Milan, Italy, so I figured I’d go ahead and review an authentic Italian beer at while I’m here.   The one that I picked at random from the cold case was Birra Del 150° Anniversario, a lager by Birra Menabrea.   Yup, it’s a lager.  A good lager though.  I had to drink it from the bottle so I didn’t get the full aroma, but it was crisp, sharper than the average American lager, and very refreshing after a long walk around northeast Milan.  All in all, a nice beer.

From New Belgium Brewing’s “Lips of Faith” series, Biere de Mars is a spring seasonal called an “Ale brewed with spices.”  It’s brewed with wild yeast which gives a bit of a Belgian scent in the nose, and lots of fruitiness all the way through.  There isn’t any bitterness in this beer, and really not a lot of spice either.  This seems like a fruit beer to me.  There some subtle orange flavors throughout, some banana in the finish, and a hint of cherry in the background.  I’m betting that if you like fruit beers, you’ll like this beer.   It’s a fine beer, but doesn’t really grab me.