Pet peeve here, I just pulled a 22-ounce bottle of Lakefront IBA out of my DBR, checked the label to see if it was EOL and what the heck, I’m SOL. OK, that’s a lot of acronyms to throw at you, so I’ll explain. Lakefront IBA is of course described on the label as an “India Style Black Ale”, though IBA is short for India Black Ale. India Black Ales are really IPAs brewed with a dash of dark malts, though dark malts that add roastiness without adding a lot more body else you end up with a stout.

I am OK with the term IBA, though not “Cascadian Dark Ale” or “Black IPA” as the style is sometimes called. Black IPA means Black India Pale Ale, and how can a beer be black and pale at the same time? My preferred term, so we are clear, is IDA, or India Dark Ale.

Anyway, as I said I pulled my bottle from my DBR (Dedicated Beer Refrigerator) and checked the freshness dating to see if it was EOL (End of Life). Now, that’s a bit of a jest, because depending on how you store your beer, it can last a lot longer or shorter than the date suggested by the brewer.

In Lakefront’s case, they prefer to notch a month, week, and year of bottling on the label and let you make your own decision on freshness. Hence my pet peeve: this label had all those things along the bottom of the label, but none of them were notched. Hence I’m SOL, and I’ll let you figure that one out for yourself.

From the label:

All hope was lost. It had been nearly a year since the shipload of pale ale bound for India left port. Then one day, a mysterious, tattered vessel arrived. The ship was desolate, save for its cargo. A keg was tapped. Something else had changed, this was no longer a pale ale.

OK, so the story is fake. But the beer is for real. We took all the stuff people like in our IPA: hoppy bitterness, floral aroma, and added dark roasted malts to round out the flavor. The result: an IPA that’s not an IPA. Now that’s pure Milwaukee genius.

Lakefront says IBA is made with “plenty of crystal and dark roasted malts…Zeus and Cascade hops. The website says the beer has 6.7% alcohol by volume, but my bottle says 6.5%.  

Lakefront IBA pours to a jet black color with a huge rocky cauliflower head and a dark malty, peppery hop nose. Taking a sip, the beer is smooth and drinkable up front with lots of roasty malt and licorice, and a big hit of coffee and chocolate, too. In the finish, I get more of that peppery hoppiness the nose promised, good piney aroma, and then a long lingering dry hop bitterness as well. There’s roasty bitterness at the last, too.

A very tasty beer to be sure, but I think the roasted malt, coffee and chocolate sort of overpower the hops and make this seem, to me, more of a hoppy porter than a true India Dark Ale. To be sure, a tasty and delicious beer, but not really my favorite India Dark Ale. That might get this one down to 3.5 stars, but the dirt cheap price of $4.49 for the bomber kicks it back up to 4. I’d definitely buy it again.

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