Deschutes Brewery Passionfruit IPA American IPA at 5.8% ABV | 65 IBU (C$9.00 at Oak & Vine, 1 l, no packaging date or best before, acquired 22-Aug-2017, reviewed 22-Aug-2017)
Appearance: clear pale amber with three fingers of rocky ivory head, excellent retention and moderate soapy lacing. (5/5) Aroma: tropical fruit, sweet caramel, pine, citrus, earth. (6/10) Taste: moderate sweet tending very slightly high, moderate bitter. (6/10) Palate: medium body, moderate-low carbonation, off-dry medium bitter mildly warming finish. (3/5)
The (very) slightly low carbonation might be due to this being a growler fill, but it’s still quite capable of setting up a towering three finger head that retains as a marshmallow all the way to the bottom. The finish, though, verges on sweet, and I shudder to think how cloying it would be without the fairly high bitterness and booziness. And I guess that pretty much sets the tone for the inevitable damning-with-faint-praise, so we might as well get right to it: it feels like Deschutes mailed this one in. “People are fruiting IPAs now? Oh. I guess we should do that, then. How about passionfruit? That’s a thing, right?” It’s not quite mediocre, I suppose, but you can see mediocre from here. This might be the beer where passionfruit jumped the shark for me. (13/20)
6.5/10 #ryansbooze ryansbooze.com
