It's been a bit over a good ten years since I first ever tried a Black IPA/Cascadian IPA. I still remember it well - Half Pints' Black Galaxy - it was a bit of a mindfuck as it was a Dark Ale but floral, bitter and citrusy vibes to it! I've had a few over the years but it was never a style I bought much since then. My good buddy Eric in Montreal told me he wanted to try out Kilter's Black IPA called Dark Zone. I picked up a few at the brewery to eventually send to him, as well as to review here. From the website: A dark, hoppy, and roasty Black IPA (6.5%) brewed and dry hopped with Centennial, Simcoe, and Sabro.
Appearance: Pours a dark brown Cola-like body with a molasses hue to it. The head starts out thick with a deep yellow-brown cookie dough kind of colour to it. The head diminishes pretty quickly leaving behind a a nice layered lacing on the glass.
Aroma: I'm mostly getting the roasty/dark notes from the malt - notes of coffee, dark chocolate, a hint of nuttiness. BUT, the tropical notes are there with a bit of grapefruit, a bit of pepper, floral hops, a bit of pine, and even a bit of lemon at the end.
Taste: Roasty with notes of coffee right from the beginning again, but a bit more of the hops are popping out to give it more of that grapefruit, a slight sweetness, bit of lemon, leafy and floral hoppiness and a hint of pine. Fairly watery mouthfeel and aftertaste is a bit of roasted malt taste.
Overall Thoughts: Solid Black IPA, definitely roasty but it does have some floral/tropical hop presence in there. I'd like to see Kilter experiment more and push the envelope on this style, if they can do it with a regular Hazy IPA, I'd be intrigued to see what kind of flavours they can get out on a dark beer like this.
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