Jul 16, 2014

Unita Brewing Detour

My experience with Uinta Brewing hasn’t been one of extremes. Their products, with the exception of a couple, have always sort of just comfortably coasted the middle of the road in terms of flavor. Rarely does the brewery knock one out of the park and rarely do they totally falter. Detour, a 9.5% ABV and 95 IBU double IPA, however, comes pretty close to falling flat.

I like a boozy brew and a big, biting IPA. Detour is sort of both, but with an oddly strong malt backbone, it presents itself more like a barleywine, and not a great one at that. The beer feels as though it’s missed the mark, delivering an experience that can only be described as harsh — overly warming and not very smooth at all.

Unita Brewing Detour photo

Appearance

A frothy stack of tawny foam falls fairly rapidly atop the rich, amber colored brew.

Aroma

Lots of pine, grapefruit and hints of citrus fill the nose as caramel and light bready notes mix with wafts of alcohol. The aroma reminds of a barleywine.

Taste

For a double IPA it’s got a fairly subdued hop character. Caramel, lightly toasted bread and a solid sweetness lead the way for pine resin and light grapefruit before the 95 IBUs arrive in a moderate hop bitterness. The brew certainly has a strong malt profile that leads into an extremely warming finish. There’s not a ton of depth here, but plenty of pine and alcohol.

Overall

Uinta does make a pretty good IPA in Hop Notch and their Anniversary Barleywine was decent enough, I’m just not quite sure what’s happened here. Detour drinks like a heavily malty barleywine with it’s uneven combination of caramel, pine and alcohol. I don’t recall seeing any specific bottling date on the bottle, so I’m not entirely sure of the age, but it certainly didn’t taste old — just not stylistically correct.

Rating: 3/5

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