Fish IPA

Product Reviewed: Fish IPA
Brewed by: Fish Brewing; Olympia, WA
Review by: David Brockington
Original Posted to Usenet: July 12, 1994

Initial Impressions:

Fish Brewing is yet another relatively new operation in the fine state of Washington. They have a brewpub which has been open for about one year, and have been distributing some of their beer to Seattle pubs for roughly the same amount of time. This IPA was being served cask conditioned at the Herbfarm Microbrew Festival on June 18-19. I sampled it on the 19th.

The beer itself was light copper in shade, providing a nice contrast the the majority of IPAs brewed in the Northwest and on the Left Coast, which all tend towards the pale. Due to rough treatment, no doubt, the glass which I was poured was unduly hazy. While it was cask conditioned, ideally the cask will hang out in one location, allowing the beer inside to drop bright a bit. This cask didn't have that luxury, being at a crowded microbrew festival.

Nose:

The nose was dominated by a pleasant maltiness with some floral hop notes in the background.

Flavor:

The first thing I noticed when tasting Fish Eye IPA was a pronounced maltiness -- not quite what one would expect out of a truly malty beer such as a bock, but enough in an IPA for one to take notice. Following the malt is a brief experience of hop flavor which led into a full, lingering hop bitterness finish. The beer had a medium to light body.

Final Analysis:

Using the Thomlinson series from _Brewing Techniques_ as a guide, I would classify this IPA as a "classic" IPA rather than a "west coast" interpretation. The hop nose and hop flavor were indeed present, which one wouldn't expect in a classic IPA, but they were muted relative to, say, Liberty Ale. The color was there for a classic variant. However, I would have expected a bit more assertiveness from the bittering component of the hopping for a truer example of the classic IPA. This beer was too "well balanced" for an IPA, imho. Perhaps it would be better to view this IPA as a hybrid between the classic and the west coast? At any rate, it was a clean, drinkable brew, with no faults.

***1/2 (out of 5)

Next Up:

Mass Bay Harpoon IPA

David Brockington, Seattle, USA
bronyaur@u.washington.edu