Saint Arnolds Homefront IPA:
Warm regards comrades and welcome to National IPA day, part uno.  Yes, it’s the third greatest day on the beer calendar (first is St. Patrick’s Day secondly the after party of St. Patrick’s Day).   Let’s look at a very special IPA today, one made by Saint Arnolds and in cooperation with Operation Home Front and about a 15 other suppliers and distributors (which includes Rahr and Louisville Slugger).  The beer is a West Coast IPA which means it is dryer than a normal American IPA as well as less balanced in the hops (that will make sense in a minute) and, lastly, no caramel malts which does mean no sweet flavor to cut those unbalanced hops.  The beer itself pours very well with a double finger foamy white head that sticks around for a while and leaves a nice remnant on the top of the beer.  The nose is very citrus laden with notes of orange rather than grapefruit and a touch of hops as well.  The taste is very hop heavy on the front end while the mid and back-end fade quickly to the normal skunk like after taste with most average IPA’s have.  Not a stand out IPA but a good one, a step above those entry level so it will impress most average hop heads (and any wanna be hop-head) but as an unfortunate side effect of this challenge is the introduction to mind blowing IPAs that become the stander bearer for the whole style.  This is good, give it a try, but I have had better and will opt for the better stuff if I have the chance and if you do, you should know that all proceeds from the beer sales go to help Operation Home Front.