5-Grid Imperial IPA - Schooner Exact Brewing Company

barleywinefiend

Washington

4.47/5  rDev +2.1%
look: 4 | smell: 4.5 | taste: 4.5 | feel: 4.5 | overall: 4.5

Pours a nice gold color with good carbonation and a nice white head. Nose is floral, pine, caramel, booze. Taste is very good. A IIPA that makes you say mmm mmm good immediately. Sweet, floral, pine and some orange peel, grapefruit from time to time. Caramel malt perhaps, booze is nice and keeps it biug, most of the bitterness is reserved for ther end. Very drinkable and very good.

Serving type: on-tap

04-05-2010 12:13:10 | More by barleywinefiend

RedDiamond

Oregon

4.3/5  rDev -1.8%
look: 4.5 | smell: 4.5 | taste: 4.5 | feel: 3.5 | overall: 4

5-Grid drives Schooner Exact's regular 3-Grid IPA into imperial territory. At least in name. I'm not sure how closely the two beers' ingredients are related, but 5-Grid is a genuine showboat beer.

It looks much like a typical golden IPA with a vivid flourish of lace and an otherwise routine body. But the hop flavor and aroma are brilliant and the beer projects muscular bittering with no tannic intrusion. I'd even call this one of the more Pliny-like DIPAs in terms of over-the-top IPA hop character that you'll find locally. The hops are sweet and flowery suggestive of a sugary hop nectar, making this beer over-hopped to near sublime satisfaction. A real contender.

Serving type: on-tap

03-23-2010 04:51:53 | More by RedDiamond