Thanks Steve for bringing by a can of Desert Island IPA by Sookram's Brewing out of Winnipeg! It only took me 3.5 weeks to get to it! This month has been a busy month for no reviews.
I happened to visit Sookram's just last week and holy hell.. it was effing hell to get to, not only was traffic beyond annoying by the usual Winnipeg standards but I missed the turnoff by one block too soon so I had to drive another 15 minutes just to get to it. In the end, I went and it was a great little place with tasty beer.. but close to no parking so I suggest taking transit/riding a bicycle!
Desert Island IPA is described as Hoppy. Tropical. Aromatic. The beer is described as having intense hop flavours and aromas of peach, mango and tropical fruit.
Appearance: Pours a clearish amber-caramel - an appearance that reminds me of my favourite Old School IPAs from yesteryear (like Half Pints' Little Scrapper). The head is pretty decent with a light off-white appearance to it, fairly fluffy and gradually diminishes to mostly a bunch of lacing and a bit of snow cover on top of the beer itself.
Aroma: The label is pretty on point, I'm getting peach, mango and tropical fruit right from the beginning. This reminds me a tad of Unibroue's Autre Chose IPA that I reviewed nearly a year ago, but this is much better - not full on peach and it's more balanced so far. Light amount of graininess, but mostly sweet and tropical yet not as tropical as the crazy NEIPAs we're all far too familiar with now days.
Taste: Peach is the dominating flavour here, followed by a bit of mango and yeah.. tropical fruits. There's a moderate amount of caramel malt profile to it. Not really getting any bitterness from the hops here, the tropical notes are the entire show in this beer. There's an ever so slight graininess far into the beer, but that's about it. It's pretty straight forward.
Overall Thoughts: I feel like this beer could definitely do a bit of tweaking, but having it on tap only a few days ago, I definitely preferred it on tap as it was definitely giving off a good balance of sweetness with tropical notes but also a mild bitter pine-like hop presence as well. Honestly reminds me a lot of Unibroue's Autre Chose. Seeing this brewery is still the newest in the province, I know there'll be a lot of tweaking done to make it as close to perfect as possible, I guess I'm just one of those few who still want bitter IPAs in this day and age.. ha!
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