This beer is a unique collaboration effort between Powell Brewery and Four Winds Brewing which was released in 4 packs of 16 oz cans a couple of weeks ago into the market. It has a fairly low IBU of 31 with an ABV of 6.8% and is more of a hybrid style than either a traditional IPA or Farmhouse Ale. I picked this for IPA of the week to help show off the continuing creativity in the IPA world and because it’s a darn tasty beer.

Aroma and Appearance: It pours a fairly clear gold colour with close to three fingers of white, lacing foam with some small fast rising bubbles visible in the glass. The aroma is fresh hay, cereal grains, animal feed, barely used horse blanket with impressions of pepper and floral herbs captured at the center of the tulip glass.

Flavour: Initially it delivers some clean, bright hay malt with floral overtones and subtle nuances of barnyard before moving into a lemon rind, light bodied middle. The finish is quite clean and almost crisp like a good lager, with lemon pepper and mixed spring herbs on the aftertaste. Nothing here is overpowering, in fact it’s all a bit subtle versus what most hop head IPA folks are used to.

Overall Impression: A pretty nice delivery of flavour overall. It was lighter bodied than I expected and the hops were a bit muted, but the beer itself was quite pleasant, very well made and just great to drink. I did yearn for a bottle conditioned version however, as I find pretty much any farmhouse ale is better conditioned on yeast, but alas this was still pretty great canned. Given that it was well priced at $13.75 for a 4 pack, it earned a pretty high cost to flavour/quality ratio in my books.

Rating: I gave it a very good rating of 7.5/10, totally worth picking up.

Food Pairing: Would work great with white fish, fresh farmhouse cheeses and a good farmers sausage.

You can see their tasting notes on their social media release. I didn’t perceive any fruit here beyond a bit of lemon, even after enjoying this one a few times on separate days, so I’m curious what any of you thought about this one?