Samuel Adams Rebel IPA

The first day of April 2015 was a bright and sunny affair in Toronto, and a relatively warm one, too--first in a while. Weather like that had me panting after a chipper, playful IPA. I reached for a 355mL bottle of Samuel Adams Rebel IPA, a 6.5% offering from the Boston Beer Company out of Boston, Massachusetts.

Rebel is a shiny orange gold liquid, with a slight haze to it, and a short-lived ivory head. On the nose, there are lime notes and hints of bitterness and boozy heft. Pretty crisp for an India Pale, the lime theme continues into the flavour, which is nice enough since lime seems to be an underused component on the citrus spectrum, more commonly found in offensively flavoured lite "beers". (Note: I had a momentary internal debate about whether to place quotation marks around the word lite, beer, or both--if you can sense my disdain, then I think I got it right.) Citrus hops are prominent, but a touch understated, and the finish is dry and brief.

Rebel IPA is a goodish offering. It's not memorable, but it was nowhere near disappointing either. It has a curious and pleasing taste, but suffers from a lack of depth and verve. Still, it's a decent IPA and it comes in sixes, so I'd buy it again. And with its place on the low end of the IPA booze scale, it'd be a good one to bring to a house party.

Rating: 7.0 out of 10.