American IPA - Tasting

I brewed up this IPA with the hopes of duplicating my favorite beer (Four Peaks Hop Knot) which is only available in Arizona.  Now that I have moved to Pennsylvania I will no longer have access to that beer and I wanted to see if I could put together a reasonable approximation.

I will capture my notes on the comparison between the two beers later this week and today I will just assess the beer on it's own merits.  It drinks very easy and at 7% alcohol (which is very well hidden) I'm finding that drinking three of them results in me getting a skull splitting headache the next morning.

It was reputed that the US-05 strain of yeast will produce a peach ester if fermented below 60 F.  Based on the original clone's lack of peach character using WPL007 I decided to give this technique a shot.  It ended up producing a very significant fruity/peachy flavor.  It is actually quite different than the original but I'm finding that the peach yeast character blends very nicely with the character produced by the dry hops.  I'm sure I will laugh at this when I finally get a chance to try some Heady Topper but this balance reminds me of how that beer is often discussed as having a nice balance of peach ester from the yeast and the floral/citrus hops.

Anyway, I found it interesting to use the yeast in a non-standard way to get some different flavors.  I would like to play around with this some more in the future.

Tasting Notes:

• Aroma:
• Citrus/piney hops are the dominant smell mixed with some fruity peach ester character.  No malt and no alcohol in the aroma to speak of.
• Appearance:
• Has a decent head after a fairly aggressive pour (not pictured) that lasts over the course of drinking the beer.  A little bit of lacing on the glass.  It is pretty clear beer if you are careful to avoid the significant amount of sediment at the bottom of the bottle.
• Flavor:
• Up front there is a sweet fruitiness of the citrus hops and the peach ester.  The two flavors get a long pretty darn well in this beer.  The finish has a nice assertive bitterness.  It's a very dry finish.  The flavor has changed a bit over the last two weeks that I've been drinking it.  The finish has gotten drier ss the beer has conditioned in the bottle.  This is the best bottle I have had so far.
• Mouth-feel:
• Has a full bodied mouth feel and finishes very dry.
• Overall:
• The balance between the hops and ester is complimentary.  The bitterness that has emerged after the beer has adequately conditioned makes this a much easier drinker.  The high ABV seems a bit over the top - I think it would have been just as good at 5% and much less hangover inducing.

So, I am very happy with the beer based on it's own merits.