Drink Along - Bitter End Lakeland IPA

Our first beer in the 52 Week Drink Along is Bitter End Brewing Co Lakeland IPA. This bottle stood out from the rest of the summer case through the strength of its branding. You can tell the bottle label has been designed on a budget but the information is clear, the presentation is distinct and the styling suggests a modern beer from a brewery that cares about the quality of their product above all else. Top marks so far.

Bitter End are based in Cumbria and have been brewing beer since 1995, their mission statement says: “We pride ourselves in making innovative, progressive and exciting full flavour beers, which are not to be confused with mass produced, bland, tasteless beers”. Sounds good to me. Lakeland IPA is made with pale and crystal malts, cascade, simcoe and first gold hops.

The beer is pound-coin-golden with a white head; immediately after pouring I notice heavy carbonation with lots of tiny bubbles billowing from the sides of the glass. The aroma is subdued but I can detect lemony citrus with a sweetness behind it – imagine the smell of a concentrated lemonade syrup.

The first few mouthfuls are dominated by syrupy sweetness and by those lemony citrus notes; combined with that heavy carbonation I’m immediately thinking shandy! The fizzy drink style shandy you get in two litre bottles, the stuff that’s only something like 0.1% alcohol. Half the glass is gone and it’s perfectly enjoyable, just not what I was expecting at all.

As the beer warms I’m getting more hop aroma and flavour; a pungent, dirtier hop flavour that could be coming from that simcoe. There’re are no faults in this beer, it’s very clean and tidy, I’d guess a California ale yeast strain is at work here. And as it warms further it’s getting better and better, that hop flavour is coming through stronger, I’m getting a floral quality to it now – something along the lines of cut flowers, and then there in the finish there’s a grainy, biscuity flavour coming from the malt. I’m really enjoying this beer as I empty the glass.

If we’re talking IPA, I want more hops. Add to that the 5.5% abv and I’m going out on a limb to say I find this closer to an American Pale Ale than an American style IPA. The bitterness is right but I’d like the beer to be drier, that sweetness becomes a bit too much at times and I think a drier finish could tighten things up and further improve drinkability. Don’t get me wrong though, I think this is a great beer, faultlessly made with some good hoppy presence and nicely balanced malty backbone.

Over to you ... what do you reckon?