Beer Review, Firestone Walker Union Jack IPA

Last night, after looking through the list of winners from the Great American Beer Festival, I noticed that I had one (ok, at least one) of the beers in the house that I haven't had before. In the box from Rob was a bottle of Firestone Walker Union Jack IPA. This beer took gold in the American-Style India Pale Ale category. With 104 entries in that category, it was the category with the most entries.

Firestone Walker also took 5 other medals including American Style Pale Ale. They seem to be good with hops.

This one poured a beautiful golden to light yellow color. It had some moderate pure white foam that didn't stick around very long. It smelled strongly of orange and citrus. I could tell this was going to be a hoppy beer. It was a bit thinner than some of the other beers I've had recently, it wasn't near as syrupy as Mikkeller Black, but did have a little stick around-ness to it. It turned slightly effervescent (bubbly) if left in the mouth for a while.

Again, this one's flavor could be described as bitter. It was also somewhat sweet. There was a little bit of a burn as it went down the throat, it wasn't an alcohol burn, more of a spicy burn. As it warmed it developed more peppery flavor. I did notice a little bit of a pleasant tartness to it. After a while of savoring it, my thoughts were "liquid hops".
This was an awesome beer. The malt was evident, but not too powerful, there wasn't much of a cookie flavor to it. The malt acted like a carrier for the hops, instead of the dominate flavor.

I began thinking I could just add this beer to my wort instead of hops, and I'd have a very mellow beer, but that'd be a waste.

There's no way I could drink more than one of these a day. The next morning, I'd come into work oozing hops. Pine fresheners wouldn't be as piney as me.

I'm jealous of the west coasters, as this beer (and many others) don't make the 2,000 mile ride here, unless they are smuggled as yeast samples.