Fort Collins Rocky Mountain IPA
For all practical purposes, I shouldn’t be drinking a beer tonight, as I just finished recovering from the World Beer Fest a few hours ago. However, you must understand that it IS Sunday night, and there is football on, and so it feels like I oughta at least have a single beer. So, just lay off me, okay!!!
So far, Fort Collins has impressed me with their beers. I never went into any of ‘em with very high hopes, but I have always been pleasantly surprised. However, I’m especially anxious to try out their IPA – mainly because I’ve had most IPAs that are currently on shelves, so I feel like I’m a better relative judge of IPAs than of, say, Pomegranate Wheat ales (another Fort Collins variety). So, let’s see how it goes!
This beer pours a slightly hazy dark golden color with a thin, dense, white head. The aroma of this is very hoppy and flowery-sweet. It is more pungent than I normally expect from a standard IPA, but it smells very good indeed. In the mouth, this is a very big IPA. In fact, I think it’s an understatement to simply title this “IPA”. Rather I think “Imperial IPA” might be a better approximation. Immediately in the mouth there is a decent hop burn on the tip of the tongue. On through the mouth, this beer gives you a substantial dash of bitterness, but there is a nice floral note and some mild malt sweetness to round everything out. This beer strikes a good balance between bitter and floral, as there are doses of each through the mouth and, in fact, it occasionally seems like the bitterness streaks across the tongue while a floral tint lingers through the roof of the mouth, eventually retreating into the nasal cavity. It is a pleasing sensation, and lends the beer a nice complexity. Overall, I’m extremely impressed with this. I’d rank it right up there with the best domestic IPAs, and you get a lot of bang for your buck. Be sure to try this if you’re a fan of IPAs…
I just found this beer at a local beer store and on Ben’s positive review I picked it up (hence the updated image). I’m glad I did. Overall I would agree with Ben’s review (nice bitterness, sweet malt balanced complexity), except I smelled/tasted a bit of fruitiness in the beer.
I have not seen this beer around before so either their distribution is growing or I have just been very unobservant. Either way, keep your eyes out for this one because it is definitely an IPA to try out.