Welcome, friends, and grab a seat at the bar here. I’ve already ordered you up a tasty mug of Cherry Street West LA Hopaway IPA here at my local Taco Mac. I hope you won’t find that presumptuous of me, but this beer is so good that I just know you’ll really enjoy it, hophead that you are.

West LA Hopaway IPA is a single-hop IPA in the intensely bitter West Coast IPA style. The hop used is Centennial, and the beer has an alcohol content of 7% by volume. I paid $6.75 for a mug at my local Taco Mac, slightly pricey I think but I did get a full mug pour.

One word of note here: Cherry Street West LA Hopaway IPA may be a West Coast IPA in style, but it’s not brewed on the West Coast. Far from it (and I mean that literally), the beer is brewed in Cumming, GA at the Cherry Street Brewing Cooperative. Yet another new Georgia brewery. Although their logo says “since 2006” on it, this is the first that I have heard of them, and the first beer that I have had from them.

Cherry Street West LA Hopaway IPA pours to a deep yellow amber color with a thick creamy head and a sharp, faintly resiny hop aroma in the nose. Taking a sip, I get a touch of caramel malts up front before the hops take over, and in a big way. They become immensely bitter as is the hallmark for this style, with a light resin and more pronounced grapefruit aroma and a sharp, cutting edge long lingering dry bitterness. I was very impressed with this beer, it reminded me of Green Flash West Coast IPA in many ways.

Cherry Street West LA Hopaway IPA is, as I said, the first beer I’ve tried from Cherry Street, but if this one is any indication of the quality of their brews, it surely won’t be the last. Oh and about that mug of brew I ordered up for you at the start of this review? Since you haven’t touched it yet, I guess I’ll just drink it myself. It’s a sin to let good beer go to waste, after all.

And remember, try a new beer today, and drink outside the box.

*Pricing data accurate at time of review or latest update. For reference only, based on actual price paid by reviewer.

(B)=Bottled

(D)=Draft

 

 



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