Bearded Iris Pipsqueak Tiny IPA

The beauty of Bearded Iris is that their beers are unfiltered, and that raw, delicious beer can do what it wants with the taste buds. What they usually want to do is delight and amaze, but you're leaving yourself open to them doing pretty much what they want. These local guys are trying their best, and I'm all for it.

The grapefruit juice-like beer has pretty much no head, but scattered bubbles rising to the surface belie the carbonation lurking within. The aroma of heavy citrus makes me think that the "Tiny" in the name may not actually translate to the taste. There is some spice adding to the orange, tangerine, and grapefruit citrus, tantalizing the taste buds from afar.

First sip is more pepper than I expected. I thought there were only light spices, but this is packing some serious flavor outside of the expected citrus. The malt is also a lot more forward than I expected with a dank and woody sweetness to compliment the tangy fruits.

Tip-in is sweet and orange with carbonation burn around the edges. The middle opens into a much more aggressive acidic stew of grapefruit and a kind of pulverized tree bark, scraping down the tongue. The finish is seltzer flavorless followed by a bitterness that is unwarranted by the lack of hop personality in the rest of the beverage.

Bottom Line: If you keep swinging at the ball, you'll hit some out of the park, but some will go into the stands as a foul. This one was a slice.

1.5/5