Arcade Grapefruit IPA

Brewed By: Arcade Brewery in Chicago, Illinois

Purchased: 22oz bomber bought at West Lakeview Liquors in Chicago, IL; 2014 (batch #2) 

Style/ABV: American India Pale Ale, 6.3%

Reported IBUs: 65

These Midwest shelf turds keep growing!! About Arcade Brewery: 

The Arcade Brewery is another new Midwest brewery based out of Chicago, Illinois. They had a successful Kickstarter launch back in 2012, and opened their doors officially sometime in 2014. The brewery is owned by Chris Tourre and Lance Curran, and the current Brewmaster is Jay Eychaner who formerly interned at Metropolitan Brewing. For more info, check out the brewery's Twitter or Website.

The Grapefruit IPA is described on the bottle as "a heroic, citrusy IPA, brewed with grapefruit juice." This one pours into a really dark and murky body...I'm really surprised at how dark this beer is. It takes on an almost maroon or brown color, kicking up two fingers of hop-fueled, brown/maroon-tinted head. If you told me this was an IPA, I'd tell you the swamp called and they want it back. It does leave nice lacing and some glossy alcohol legs.

Arcade Grapefruit IPA

On the aroma: caramel malts, orange, heavy candied grapefruit and orange, and dank hops. The hops are coated with sugars and smell dense. There is a secondary character of pine, and it is also pretty dank. This smells dank and heavy more than sweet and citrusy...I'm curious how this is going to taste.

Whew...this actually tastes pretty good. I was worried this would be a malty-intense beer like Finch's IPA, but it isn't. This isn't overly complex, but it is solid in its execution. I'm getting big grapefruit, grapefruit juice, Mimosas, and dank hops that sort of chill in the back. Actually, the hops mostly just provide some bitter resin and dankness on the finish, helping to dry out the fairly juicy and sweet front end. This really is a grapefruit juice ride, with maybe a little rind or citrus from the hops. Nice.

This is medium-light bodied, well carbonated, and way more refreshing in the taste than the aroma suggests. From the aroma alone, you'd probably be cautious about this beer. But it ends up keeping everything together thanks to the grapefruit juice. Palate depth is good, the complexity is low. This goes down smooth at 6.3%. Up front: grapefruit juice, mimosas, citrus hops, light lemon/rind; the mids roll into more grapefruit, with some bitter and dank hop character taking shape; the back end goes dark drying things out. 

Rating: Average (3.0/5.0 Untappd)

I'm feeling a Strong Average on this. This is pretty solid as far as fruit juice plus an IPA goes...BUT, it doesn't really do anything more than give you what is advertised. I'm not really blown away by the complexity or nuances of this. As it warms the malts start to come out, and you get some nice caramel, but the hops don't really stand out and the juice doesn't really stand out. I'm about to pair this with an omelette...I think that will be nice. Not bad at $7.99 or whatever I paid.

Random Thought: Tomorrow is the first day of class. Woo.