Yellow Snow IPA

I was at Best Cellars on Boylston Street in downtown Boston killing a little bit of time with an advertised wine tasting.  As I walked around the store, I noticed an IPA by Rogue Brewing Company that I hadn’t seen before called Yellow Snow IPA.  The bottle told me that “Together We Can Do It,” so I can only assume that this beer was a limited-time offering to commemorate the Barack Obama inauguration.  I bought a bottle, and after shamelessly plugging the Connoisseurs site to the employee at Best Cellars, I tucked the bottle away until Connoisseur Michael came to visit.

Michael arrived from New York, got to my condo, and immediately went to the fridge and found the cold IPA.  We cracked it open and poured it into very classy red plastic cups.  The head of this beer was big and thick, with a non-diminishing sticky residue on the cup, though this could have been the plastic going to town on the beverage.  Either way, it was big.  It had a straight-forward mix of grapefruit and fresh hops on the nose, and enticed the senses.  The liquid itself was golden yellow, likening itself to the mental image of yellow snow, thought hopefully no the flavor profile.  No, indeed, the ale did not taste like the name described, but of bitterness through and through.  From the start to the finish, this beer brought many layers of bitterness to the table, leaving you with a crisp feeling and a hopheads dream come true.  There were slight flavors of citrus throughout, but the smell carried the fruitiness.  Michael was critical of the bitterness, saying it “attacked the side palate with pith flavors.”  He also accused me of wanting to like the beer so much that my judgment was clouded. 

I thought Yellow Snow IPA was a good beer, but in retrospect, Michael had a point.  The beer was showing off the bittering capabilities of hops in an IPA and failed to make a balanced product.  If you are an IPA drinker, this beer is worth seeking out, but I think more as a one-off thing rather than an all night affair.