Saint Arnold Elissa IPA:
Greetings and salutations good friends and neighbors and welcome back to the little beer website that could, still can, and did…twice.  For today’s review, let’s stay inside the great state of Texas for this beer examination and look at Houston’s Saint Arnold Brewery and their Elissa IPA.  This IPA might be the first beer to be reviewed on this website that uses reverse osmosis water to help cut the bitterness and make this “softer” IPA for the non-hop head beer drinkers.  The beer was poured from a tap with a nice clear golden color, a thin white head of foam that leaves some lacing and a nose of mellow pine resin.  The beer’s initial taste is a nice mellow mix of hops and a touch of malts but quickly builds to a noticeable sour citrus flavor that maintains its level throughout the aftertaste and finishes with a mellow skunk that gently reminds you that just took a sip of an IPA.  A nice clean IPA, it breaks no new ground as far as IPAs go but it does pair well with meals and won’t washout the flavor of your food like some stronger IPAs tend to do.