Fakin IPA

Tap, a bit warmer than preferred. Pours hazy Amber, large creamy beige head, nice lacing. Aroma is pretty basic pine, some bread and caramel. Flavor is light plus sweet, medium bitter, kind of a British styled IPA. Nothing spectacular, but solid in its simplicity.

Tap at the brewery. Quite good APA, falls short of IPA both in aroma and flavour. Hazy orange colour. Aroma fruity, hoppy, garlicy. Taste is fruity, resiny, garlic, oranges. Good beer, just not your typical IPA.

Tap at Pivnica Medvedgrad Adžijina. Hazy orange color with thick off-white head. Fruity hoppy aroma. Taste, solid malty base followed by light citrus hoppy taste. Light hoppy bitter finish. OK.

Oct ’14. On tap at Dva Tona bar, Split. Hazy deep honey colored with brown hue and medium sized, very compact head. Honey sweet malt and some very weak lemon hops in aroma. Flavor was lightly bitter, but herbal hops were a bit too little pronounced, for an IPA. Counterpart was fruity and biscuit malt, pleasant but, in this case, too overwhelming. Real bitterness present only in its finish, orange and lemon hops prevailed there. Medium bodied. Not bad all in all, but also expected much more from it. Leaves slightly characterless, weak overall impression. Nevertheless, I’m really glad they’re continuing with seasonals that are modern, trendy in craft beer scene and looking forward for the new ones!

On tap at Druga Konferencija Pivara i Sajam Piva, Zagreb. Hazy orange with white head. Fruity aroma. Flavor is mostly acidic and fruity. Really not sure what went wrong, expected more bitter character.

On tap at prerelease tasting at Medvedgrad Ilica. Ufff...that was The evening...lol
Hazy orange/amber coloured, medium sized off-white head, fruity hoppy nose. Moderate malty, fruity hoppy and light alcoholic with notes of oranges. Starts sweeter but after few seconds bitterness shows up. Also bitter fruity finish and pleasant bitter aftertaste. Really good brew.

Croatia’s first commercial IPA. Well, one might say it’s third, but those other two aren’t brewed in the country and are, frankly, off style. In any case, Croatia’s oldest proper micro finally released something a bit more extreme. And we are damn glad they did it. Tried this at a cool prerelease tasting session (thanks Ivan & Luka!) on Monday, and since it’s out today, might as well rate it. Poured a locely murky amber orange body with a creamy, just a touch off white head that lasted long enough. This is dry hopped, but the aroma is quite faint, a thing that the brewery is quite aware of and will work to fix in the next batch - in any case, what little is thare is basically a light note of aroma hops. Creamy taste that initially blasts you with a wave of herbal hoppy bitterness, which soon enough gets balanced out by a full maltiness (just a shade on the sweet side, but not to be taken as a minus), and lovely notes of candied orange and apricot. The bitterness lasts well into the aftertaste and doesn’t detract. So yeah, a true to style, fuckin’ well executed locally brewed IPA just landed on the Croatian market. WOOHOOO!!!! I only hope that the average, and the above average Joes brainwashed into a rabid dislike of anything resembling bitterness by the macros won’t diss this for no reason and will be able to enjoy it like it deserves to be enjoyed.