Name: Third Street Brewhouse Spotlight
Style: India Pale Ale
ABV: 7.3%
Last year I did a review of Cold Spring Brewing's IPA and found it to be very lacking and made a good argument that quantity is not always better than quality. Since that review, the brewery itself has pretty much completed their metamorphosis to become the Third Street Brewhouse. I bring this up because today I have Third Street's Spotlight IPA, which is the brewery's newest release, at least to my knowledge. Since it's been a while since I've had anything from the brewery itself, it's time to see how this stacks up to their old IPA.
Spotlight pours a dark yellow color with a fair amount of haze floating around and some mild visible carbonation.
The aroma starts off with a solid grapefruit scent along with some citrus hops and a bit of a apricot sweetness. There is also some caramel maltiness in here too but everything else seems a bit more prominent.
The flavor has some fairly strong piney/resin hop bitterness to it along with some citra hops and mild caramel maltiness. It's not exactly what you'd call a West Coast-style IPA.
The body is more on the lighter side in terms of weight with a slight thickness. The carbonation is fairly low so it's not exactly an intense beer to drink.
Compared to their old IPA, this is by far a much better beer and the improvement in quality is definitely a welcome change. With that said, it hasn't done anything that I already haven't seen before in an IPA but you aren't making a bad choice by buying a six-pack of this either.
Third Street Brewhouse Spotlight - 8/10
