
10 September 2017 - Best Beer HQ
Islamorada Channel Marker IPA Review
The lovely Florida Keys are being battered by Hurricane Irma as I write this review of a beer I enjoyed there on holiday back in June.
On that day, the weather couldn’t be much more different. It was hot and sunny, with nary a cloud in the sky. We pulled our red Mustang convertible in at a delightful key-side restaurant, where I washed down a fresh fish burger with a big glass of local Islamorada Channel Marker IPA.
ABV: 5.18%
IBU: 24
Blurb about the beer: This IPA does not need a compass to point you in the right direction to return to the islands. The flavours of this Session IPA will get you to sit, relax, and enjoy the beautiful island sunset from any local spot. Channel Marker IPA pairs perfectly with cracked conch.
Taste test: I wrote down some tasting notes at the time, but to jog my memory a bit I looked up Islamorada Channel Marker IPA on popular beer review websites Rate Beer and Beer Advocate, where it had scores of 31 (bad) and 83 (good) respectively.
My review is going to come down somewhere between those two ratings, because I think this was a perfectly decent – if not particularly memorable – beer from a Florida craft brewery that didn’t exactly thrill me when I stopped in for a quick visit a few months back. (I think some of its other beers were poor, but I’ll review those eventually.)
Islamorada Channel Marker IPA pours a copper colour with a thin white crown. It tastes of citrus fruit, pine, and a nutty malt backbone. On the IPA spectrum, this one sits closer to sessionable than it does to full-on flavoursome.
The verdict: Like I said, Channel Marker IPA is decent, but not spectacular – unlike the Florida Keys, which was an awesome place to visit. My thoughts go out to everyone there right now; hope you manage to weather the storm as best as you possibly can!
Beer/movie combination: This scene in the awesome action/comedy flick True Lies was filmed on the famous Seven Mile Bridge in the Florida Keys…
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