Elusive Brewing: Indie Rabble: Forbidden West (England: IPA: 6.8%)
Visual: Clear caramel gold. Large off white head that leaves suds. No visible carbonation in the body.
Nose: Slightly bready. Soft orange and lemon.
Body: Good bitterness. A clean feel to the body initially, but with slight hop oils sheen. Resinous over time. Vanilla. Popcorn.
Finish: Greenery. Hop oils and bitterness. Very resinous. Soft lemon. Dried apricot. Palma violets. Bready. Light sulfur.
Conclusion:
Ok this is both fairly minimal in its take on a west coast IPA, and fairly good as a take as well. Pretty good combo, let’s go.
It is dry, but initially not super dry, and in fact quite clean feeling on initial sipping, with a slight hop oil sheen to it. However somehow the more you drink the more attenuated and drying it seems.
No, I don’t know how that works either.
Initially there is a soft citrus note, but rapidly the bitter resinous hop character builds over that. Initially it is just a pleasant touch, but quickly becomes a brutal assault – in a good way, natch. It also becomes quite bready, giving a bit more weight, then goes out into a very green hop feeling character in the finish.
This isn’t a super polished example of the style, nor does it have that little extra that marks the best of the style, it is generally straight forwards but also … good. Basically if you want a good no nonsense west coast IPA, this is it.
Not much else to say, does the job nicely.
Background: Elusive Brewing have been turning out a lot of variants on their main west coast IPA recently, and doing lots of west coast style collaborations with various breweries. As you can imagine, as a west coast IPA fan I approve completely. Initially I was a bit hit and miss with Elusive Brewing, but I did like their silly 8 bit style cans, so grabbed a couple more for the fun and they really have grown on me since then. I am grabbing a fair chunk of their stuff now. Take note brewers, I am that easy to entice back for a second chance, just give me silly looking cans and west coast IPAs. I don’t know much about Indie Rabble, think this may be my first encounter with them. Music wise went back to Metallic: 72 Seasons. I’ve been enjoying it but not played that much, so put it back in the rotation. Another beer grabbed from Independent Spirit.
