Barrio Imperial IPA

Aroma: 7 | Appearance: 8 | Mouthfeel: 8 | Flavor: 8 | Overall: 8

Poured up on tap at the 2015 edition of the AZ Strong Beer Festival where it exhibits a clear deep gold body that supports an off white head of foam. The modest aroma offers up some citrus tangelo like notes as well as a little bit of onion spicy hoppines. The taste is thin and it also has a little sort of off caramel note in the background. Outside of that the hops are pretty darn nice with pleasing tangelo and grapefruit and onion spicy hoppiness where a sliver or two of juicy citrus is interlaced amid the bitter hop notes. Overall this has pleasing hoppiness and hop bitterness as those hops linger well into the after taste. But this comes up short on a few fronts for a IIPA in body, thin aromatics and the out of place caramel like sensation.

AZ Strong Beer Fest 2016 edition. This batch omitted the sort of off caramel sensation noticed in the 2015 batch. As a result this comes together pretty nice where the thin-ish body makes this seem pretty damn crushable and dangerous. Look out! Score is bumped up accordingly from 3.6 to 3.9.