Drake's Symposium IPA 2011

Drake's Symposium IPA 2011

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Brewed by Drake's Brewing Company

San Leandro, CA, United States

Style:  IPA

7.5% Alcohol by Volume

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2011 Symposium IPA, 12 oz. bottle, fairly fresh. Courtesy Degarth. Pours a clear, dark, sunset orange-amber color with lively, effervescing streams of micro-bubbles. The fizzy bubbles continually feed a moderate, dense head of beige tinted foam. The froth is slow to deflate, never fully retreating, and settling as a short, stout layer. Thick, clumpy splotches of lacing mark the glass. Aromas tow the line between standard IPA and Imperial, weighing in with hefty bread and fruit malt underpinnings that balance the bold citrus and pine hops. Notes of caramel, buttery toffee, crusty bread, and apricot all show prominently. Hops are primarily citrus driven, showing both dry pith and oily outer rind, suggesting of grapefruit primarily. Flavors largely follow suit, sweet and malty up front, moving towards a drier, biting hop finish. Grapefruit pith and sticky, bitter pine resin are the yin to the candied apricot, toffee, and bread base yang. It’s very well balanced, overall. Unfortunately, I prefer my IPAs to be considerably more dry, attenuated, and less balanced. The palate is, somewhat predictably, moderate to light in carbonation, with a big, nearly full consistency and a finish of dried up sugars. Though this is a good brew, I think if they backed the malt bill down 10-20% and lowered the ABV a good bit, they’d have hit a home run. As it stands, I would not turn the beer down, but I’d probably no seek it out either.