Extract Double IPA tasting

One of the things I love about home brewing is the flexibility and ability to experiment. Be it types of ingredients, amounts, or alcohol content there is room to have fun, learn, and make some good beer in the process. At some point I'll be trying out some funky ingredients, but for this IPA I wanted to push the limits of hops. Going into this, I knew I could make a nice, tasty IPA with only 5-6 ounces. That would have been the safe thing to do and I just wasn't into that. There's plenty of well done, balanced IPA's available locally so why brew another? For this one only a stupid amount of hops would do. With the malt, hops, and yeast purchased from Maine Brewing Supply, I set work brewing and a few weeks later ended up with this hop bomb......

Apperance: Cloudy, yet bright orange. A small amount of white head forms and fades to just a skimming. Plenty of lacing as it goes down.

Smell: Hops, tons of em. With 12oz in the boil, and 2oz of dry hopping, I didn't expect anything less. There's just a touch of sweet malt in there too. Just enough to make this a beer and not just a hop tea.

Taste: Again, hops, tons of em. A light fruity hop flavor is the first thing you taste followed by a blast of grapefruit. The amount of hops is nice but when cold the various flavors fight for attention. As it warms the grapefruit takes a backseat with a nice tropical fruit flavor from the Citra really coming through. The malt is present but barely. This is not a balanced beer at all, but was never intended to be.

Mouthfeel: Fairly thin by design. Just enough carbonation to bring out hop flavor and aroma. Plenty of hop resin on the palate helping flavor to linger for a while after every sip. Definitely a strong point of this beer. The finish is fairly dry.

Overall this beer goes down quite well. It may be a bit too bitter, but hey that was the point. After a couple sips you get used to it, and can really enjoy the hop flavor.