Founders Centennial IPA

Brewery: Founders Brewing Company
Location: Grand Rapids, MI
Style: IPA
Brewery Website
Rating: B+

Todays tasting is the Centennial IPA from Michigan's Founders Brewing Company. A quick internet search shows extremely high marks at sites like BeerAdvocate and RateBeer for the Centennial IPA, so needless to say I was quite excited to have a taste. The beer pours up a hazy, dark gold color with a hint of amber. The head is golden-tan, and relatively short. The nose finds both floral and citrus hops notes, along with faint hints of caramel and malt syrup.

On the palate there is an initial bitter bite followed by a quick rush of hoppy aromatics. As these floral and citrus notes fade, a light, pretzely malt note starts to peek through with bitter pine and resinous hops riding on top. The Centennial IPA is medium-bodied with resinous astringency and some carbonated fizz. The finish sees a tongue-coating hops bitterness riding through.

I found the Founders IPA to have a nice bitter kick with some interesting hops complexity. Unfortunately, I found that the flavoring hops faded too fast. I do have some questions about the freshness of the bottle I tasted. I would love to give it a taste at peak freshness as hops flavor and aroma fade pretty quickly over time. As it is, the Founders Centennial IPA is fairly standard fare as American IPA's go, but I appreciate that the hops component goes a little beyond the typical Cascade overload I see in so many American IPA's.