Dundee India Pale Ale

The cheap imported IPA.  A glimmering beacon when it first catches the eye, that can soon turn in to a running of the gauntlet once you pass the checkout.  Craft IPAs are almost never conservatively priced.  I often paid 8 or 9 dollars for a single IPA during my 365 day challenge, a transaction that under normal circumstances would have been harder to justify than Vanilla Ice's career.  Astonishingly at the time, this six pack only asked but 15 dollars for it's purchase, a price so low that I nearly moved past it out of pure disbelief that a solid IPA could be had at that rate.

Dundee is an American brewery, based in New York, of which I know absolutely nothing about and had never heard of prior to drinking this beer.  The beer pours an orangey copper colour, clearer than your run of the mill IPA, with little head retention.  The colour is nice, but does look a little light on the 'oompf' at a glance, but this would not be the first time my eyes hath deceived me.  This could be a wolf in sheep's clothing.

The feel of the beer is interesting, as it has a crispness to it that I expected due to the clear body, but there is still enough depth there to solidify it's place in the genre.  The flavours however are akin to a tornado that has just ripped through a farm.  There are citrus tones, bitter hops, biscuits and bread, but rather than working together in stages it feels almost like your mouth is hosting a Royal Rumble, and the referee is currently knocked out after a stray swing of a chair.

While not as clinical as a title fight, the royal rumble still has it's place.  Order can, at times, come from chaos and given the moderate price I can't be too judgmental here.  One gripe I will raise though is with the bitterness factor.  Yes, IPAs are often bitter, but there are degrees and variances to be had.  The finish to this beer sour and bitter, and cheap and metallic in quality.  It comes on so quickly that you cannot even compute the core ingredients of the beer.  The whole experience ends up a bit like Grant Hackett's apartment after a day at the track.

If you're a hop head and love an IPA, and none of your multis came through, then this is an affordable drop.

6/10