Brewery: Magic Hat Brewing Company, South Burlington, Vermont

Brewery Description: hI.P.A. is a medium-bodied groove with a fresh and fruitful nose of tympanic temptation. It begins and ends with a big hop bite that is itself forever balanced on the brink by a steady rhythm of malt. Dry-hopped for extra quenching in the face of heat and beat, it’s an ideal accompaniment to chilling out, turning inward or sailing onward through the music of the night toward the dawn of the mind. It’s the liquid way to say be here now lest you never come this way again.

Brew Style: India Pale Ale, 6.8% ABV

Recommended Glassware: Shaker, Tulip

The Ugly Truth: So this is the first of the beers in my pack from Magic Hat, and I have to say it’s a good start. hI.P.A. pours a nice, deep golden color with a foamy white head to it. It looks like your typical I.P.A., and the aroma is light with a touch of citrus to it and the nose of hops. Upon drinking it, it was clear that this was definitely not your average I.P.A. however. I found the taste to be fairly light but with a very strong flavor of hops, well beyond the norm. I’m usually not a huge fan of I.P.A.’s because I go for massively hoppy beers and darks, but the hI.P.A. gives me hope for the future since it absolutely has enough to satisfy me. The beer manages to be flavorful without going overboard and getting that bitter burn that some high hop beers tend to get. There is some bitterness there, but it’s a smooth bitterness. Now upon reading that I know that makes no sense, but it works. The bitterness that is there from the hops doesn’t come out and attempt to mug your sense of taste; it instead guides it smoothly into a crescendo of bitterness, before handing you off to the finish.

The finish itself was interesting, as it became clear that the citrus I found in the aroma was pineapple of all things. Now I’ve had citrus flavors in my beer before: orange, lemon, and lime…never pineapple. I was at first taken aback, wondering how Magic Hat dared dip the main export of Hawaii into my beer, but it actually works quite well and counters the bitterness that otherwise would wreck the finish. One other thing of note, I found the beer straight of the pour to be really strong tasting, but that if you let it air in a glass for a little bit it really heightened the overall experience. Overall, hI.P.A. is a strong, solid I.P.A. for those who want a bit more hops out of their beer.

Verdict: I will now pull 8 out of 10 bottlecap bearing rabbits out of my hat, please don’t ask what happened to the other two.