Fruit IPA from this American craft beer pioneer, flavoured with orange apparently. Thick and very mousy, eggshell-white, dense, stable head on an initially clear, deep apricot golden beer with orange hue. Aroma of freshly crushed orange peel, grapefruit juice, mandarin, cedar oil, touch of cooked chicken somewhere, biscuit, dried ginger, white pepper, fresh wormwood leaves, red onion, fried bell peppers, southernwood with a very light whiff of sweaty dankness. Clean onset, sweetish and sourish with a touch of pineapple and pink grapefruit, orange not overly obvious yet at this stage, lively carbonation, oily mouthfeel, smooth biscuity and cracker-like malt body, clean and to the point – pointing directly at a long, resinous finish brimming with citrusiness, the hops’ natural citric features merging seamlessly with the added orange, resulting in a very explicitly orange peel-like character, more so than usual for (even fruited) IPA. The bitterness lingers in a pleasantly spicy and colourful way without becoming too harsh. Fruit IPAs rarely do it for me personally, to be honest, but this is a very clever and ‘noble’ one, extremely sunny on a bright spring afternoon, very quenching and frivolous without going all childish and descending into fruit juice territory – this beer, even if coloured very vividly orange, maintains its Sierra Nevada nobility and does not forget its West Coast roots. Very pleasant beer, I could drink this by the gallon, contrary to many other, usually much more East Coast-oriented fruit IPAs.