A Hopwork Orange

A Hopwork Orange is a drolly-named product of the Blue Mountain Brewery, which does its beer-ing out of the Blue Mountain Barrel House in Arrington, Virginia. It's an "orange-infused IPA" and an "ale with natural orange flavour". Moreover, it's a clear, brassy brew topped with a fluffy cloud of off-white head. At 7% alcohol, it's a punch-packing flavoured ale.

As you'd expect, A Hopwork Orange had a juicy tangerine/orange aroma, sitting heavily on top of a dry, bitter body. The flavour was heavy on the orange and unfortunately light on the hops end of the bargain. 'Twas sweet, citrusy, and fairly agreeable, but it lacked the desired punch of arid hops that I was pining for. According to the 355mL can, there were 65 IBUs of bitterness, which I found very enticing; however that hoppiness must have been hiding, because I couldn't detect anywhere near that order of oomph.

A Hopwork Orange wasn't disappointing at all. It just didn't have as much IPA bombast as I was counting on. It did have a pretty nice, juicy heft to it, though, and loads of booze.

Rating: 7.0 out of 10.