Dante's Inferno IPA - Tasting

While brewing, I decided to open and taste a bottle of Dante's Inferno IPA - a smoked chipotle IPA I brewed last summer in honor of my friend's son. Who he named Dante. A couple years ago.

Okay, so it was a thin excuse to brew something weird, but it worked.

I poured down the side of the glass for this one, which is something I don't usually do, as a friend I had given a bottle to warned me it had gushed on him. I'm pretty sure he was confused, as I got no gushing, and minimal head at best.

I can smell hops in the aroma, but not much else. First taste, it tastes like a mild IPA (it's had a few months of aging, so the hoppiness has faded), with maybe a hint of smoke on the palate and a brush of chipotle in the back of the throat.

One of those characteristics I'm happy with. I only used a pound of smoked malt in the recipe, and even at bottling was incredibly disappointed with that. I tried to commit the cardinal sin and supplement it with liquid smoke, but even that doesn't seem to have made much of a dent.

Compared to a regular IPA, I guess it's a little smokey. Compared to a smoked beer, it's maybe just bummed it's first cigarette from a stranger in a parking lot and bum puffed its way through it, trying to look cool.

Still, I'm kind of intrigued at the potential it has. As I get to the middle of the glass, the smoke is getting more evident - maybe it just needed to warm up a little to gets the internal combustion engine of flavor revved up.

The color is great and the clarity brilliant, although having spent the last three or four months in my fridge has probably helped with the latter.

I guess I'd mark it down as not bad, but needs improvement. The chipotle character is exactly right, the smoke is low. Don't know if I'll rebrew it anytime soon, but maybe.