Mike's Beer of the Week

Beer Information

Brewery: Maine Brewing Company

Beer Name: Lunch

Beer Style: American IPA

Abv.: 7%

Serving Glassware: Pint, Tulip Glass

Serving Temp.: 45-50 deg. F. (BeerAdvocate.com)

Local Availability: Light House Liquors

Pairings: Cuisine (I had Shrimp Dianne)

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Mike's Ratings (1-5)

Overall Grade/Rate: A-/4.08

Appearance:4.5

Aroma: 4.5

Taste: 4

Mouthfeel: 3.5

Drinkability: 4

BeerAdvocate Avg. Rate: A/4.38

Mike's Description

Thanks to Steve Becker for this awesome and hard-to-get beer!

Appearance - Golden to light brown in color with a plethora of frothy off-white head. Plenty of lacing surrounding the pint glass.

Aroma - Thank goodness for the healthy head-retention to adequately preserve the strong hop esters! The aroma screams hops, hops, hops...very sweet with strong piney bitterness. Some alcohol is detectable here as well.

Taste - The hops are definitely dominant here as well, but the malt background is lacking...I was expecting a more syrupy/sugary backbone to support and play-up the hop bitterness. The alcohol is present...although the hops intend to hide it, the weak malt profile provides a gap for infiltration. I was expecting more here, but still very good.

Mouthfeel - A lighter-bodied IPA with a heavy hop aftertaste. No syrupy malt to comfort the tongue, just hops served to the palate.

Drinkability - This is a good IPA, but I was expecting better because I hold the Maine Beer Company in very high regard with Zoe and Peeper in their arsenal. There are better IPAs out there, but this one definitely deserves respect. I believe that this beer is going for a "refreshing" IPA like all of Maine's other refreshing beers, and it definitely achieves this characteristic. Prosit!