Freedom Trail India Pale Ale

Bottle thanks to cavie. Pours with a clear golden body and a white head. Aroma of honey, grass and citrus. Taste is grassy, orange, hay and astringency. Medium bubbles.

Bottle. Color was nice, but otherwise a quite thin and boring IPA. A lot of malt but too little hops in my opinion.

12oz bottle pours a transparent, copper orange amber with a thin, slightly creamy white head and plenty of carbonation. Aroma isn’t like an IPA, it’s more like an English style bitter. Nose is sweet, vegetal, a little metallic, biscuits, oranges, a littly earthy. Flavor is a cross between a bitter and an IPA. Crackery, biscuit malts, lemon rinds, oranges, with some pine kicking in at the end. Finish a little watery with some lasting bitterness. Does not have the flavor profile of an IPA in my opinion.

This one came in my beer club. Sampled from a 12 oz brown bottle this beer poured a bright orange-amber color with a medium sized beige head that lingered. The aroma was sweet grapefruit and pine with just a hint of grass. The flavor was sour, nutty and somewhat buttery with moderate fruity and piney hops. The beer turned dry towards the medium length finish. Medium body. The butter element really detracted for me. Ok.
Earlier Rating: 3/21/2006 Total Score: 2.4
This beer came in my beer club. I have not encountered this beer before. Sampled from a 12 oz brown bottle this beer poured a dark caramel color with a large yellow-tan head. The aroma is lightly fruity with a hint of nut. The flavor is sharp, bitter and sour with floral and fruity hops and a sour nutty undertone. A well below average IPA.

12 fl oz bottle. Pours hazy orange with a small white head. Light butterish and spiced aroma. Sweet malty with a light roasted note and quite spiced initial flavoured. Dry and spiced lasting flavour. Bitter and dry into the finish. Vague spiced note. Although I dislike the buterish and spice notes. Light hoppy note.

Pours amber into a shaker. Quick head recedes to hug rim. Mild hop aromas. REsin and oranges with a sour, crisp carbonated malt. Thin finish.

Deep copper color, small foamy head. Big butterscotchy diacetyl aroma, with the barest presence of spicy herbal hops, plus a vague earthiness and caramelization underneath. Flavor is nearly all diacetyl, with some tingly hop resins skirting the sides of the tongue. Moderate caramel/breadines as a base, and a balanced finish. I could do without the ringwood, I guess.

2007-09-10, bottle, 6-4-7-4-14=35
Hazy copper color. The aroma, not strong, is essentially toffee, with some light hop aromas too. Good body strength, with a powerful caramel and toffee flavor, a rather dry mouthfeel and a powerful hopping. The final is very long and strong. An English accent IPA, but pushed in the American way. I prefer the sweeter and more fruity ones.

2007-09-20, bottle at Stockholm Beer Festival 2007, 6-3-6-3-12=30
Cloudy golden color. Buttery aroma, even more the flavor. Some malt flavor, correct body strength, correct bitterness, nothing more.

This is pretty much a standard IPA, without many, or any, real flaws, but without a distinctive character of its own. I poured this beer without the best light, so just refer to other people’s accounts of the appearance. Taste was smooth, and contained some hops, but not a lot. It tasted like a session beer, not something you would drink slowly, sip by sip.