Eymet IPA

English style IPA – a near-extinct style these days – by Bastide, an English-brewing brewpub in France. Thin and open, snow white, small-bubbled head, clear deep and warm orange blonde robe. Aroma of dried apricot, butterscotch (diacetyl – but not disturbing in a young English ale), wet biscuit, dried orange peel, mugwort, dandelion, persimmon, roses, cooked tomato hint. Soft, minimally fruity onset, apple peel, unripe apricot, lively carbonation adding considerable minerality, slick and even somewhat buttery mouthfeel; dry-biscuity, lightly toasty-bitterish malts, very pure, quickly bittered by a firm dose of grassy, rooty, wormwoody hop bitterness, spreading over the tongue broadly and extensively – but the malt passes through as well. Completely noble-hopped in its dry-hopping, over a perfectly English malt and yeast profile: this is a deliciously drinkable English IPA the way you very rarely see them these days. I wish more accomplished brewers would shy away from the ‘haze craze’ and focus on the very roots of the family tree, like Mr. Davies has done with panache here…